


Not With a Leap, but a Series of Staggers

by nyxocity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, First Time, M/M, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyxocity/pseuds/nyxocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean find themselves drifting apart as they mourn their father's death. After Dean tells Sam the truth about what John told him before he died, Sam takes off, and when Dean chases after him, they both find out more truth than they ever wanted to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First time Wincest. Set in S2 post-Everybody Loves a Clown.

**Sam**

_Day 6 on the road from Bobby's_

“Were you really gonna marry her?” Dean asks, apropos of nothing as they barrel down route 66, hell bent for leather with Led Zeppelin jamming on the speakers.

The sun is high in the sky, and Sam stares out the window over the desolate flat land of middle country, finds his thoughts tangled in the tumbleweeds that blow across the land, drifting lost and wispy.

Dad’s dead. Dad’s dead and they’ll never argue or fight or hug him or see him smile ever again. Dad’s dead, Jess is dead, Mom’s dead, and all he has is his big brother and this car, driving cross country on an eternal road trip toward damnation, blasting classic rock and grasping for anything solid to hang onto.

“I wanted to,” he finally says, remembering golden blond warmth and generous smiles, chocolate chip cookies and the feel of skin on skin. “She took… care of me, you know? She really… she wanted…” And Jess is all tangled up with Dad, and Mom, and all the other things he loved so much that he’ll never, ever get back. He trails off, words sticking in his throat.

Dean waits a moment, and when Sam doesn’t speak, doesn’t finish, Dean reaches over, cranks up the music and slams on the gas, pushing the Impala to her limits.

*

_Day 11_

“Do you think you would have asked Cassie to marry you?” Sam asks, chasing his peas around on his plate with his fork. It’s been four days since Dean asked Sam about Jess, and Dean’s hardly said four whole sentences to him since. The silence is starting to wear Sam’s nerves down to thin, transparent wires. 

Dean, not even bothering with the pretense of eating, is staring out the plate glass window of the restaurant. His face seems to loll toward Sam, a slow, liquid turning of his neck. That’s the only reason Sam knows Dean is looking at him, because Dean is wearing his big, black sunglasses, the ones Sam is really beginning to hate because he misses seeing his brother’s eyes.

“What?” Dean pauses, seems to rewind and replay the question in his head, and then shakes his head. “No.” A hesitation, and then, more quietly, looking back out the window. “Maybe.”

“Do you ever wonder... If maybe the two of you could still—“

“No,” Dean says dully, with finality.

“But I thought you just said—“

“That was then. Things were different.”

“Different _how_?” Sam asks.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Sammy.”

“What? You’re the only one who gets to ask annoying, inappropriate questions? That’s such bullshit, Dean.”

In the distance, thunderclouds gather, pressing down against wide open plains of green that fade away into the distance until they turn purplish-blue, the color of bruises where they meet the sky.

Dean smirks, the corner of his mouth turning up just the tiniest bit. Keeps his gaze trained on the window. 

“You’re as much girlfriend as I can handle.”

And it’s a joke… but there’s something there in his brother’s tone, something that feels old and heavy, like something Sam should recognize. But he can’t place it, so he just looks out the window instead, watches the rain start to swirl down from a slate gray sky.

*

_Day 13_

Dean sighs, then shifts around on the bed like a kid who needs a large dose of Ritalin.

“You know, for a Jim Carrey movie, this sucks.”

“It is kind of interesting though. Don’t you think?” Sam cuts Dean a look, and Dean just shrugs. Bothered by Dean’s lack of response, Sam goes on. “I mean, it poses some interesting questions. Like, if you could have your memories erased, would you? _Should_ you?”

Dean turns his head slightly, looking over at Sam with one lazily arched eyebrow, like Sam can’t possibly be serious. But there’s no life in it, no sparkle. It’s like, with Dad dead, a light’s gone out inside of Dean. His eyes are dark, haunted hallways to empty rooms, heavy circles beneath like shadows of blame. And Dean’s looking at him, but Sam isn’t sure Dean sees him anymore, and that hurts more than he expects, because Sam remembers a time not too long ago when he was all Dean _could_ see.

Sam shrugs with one shoulder, turns his eyes back to the screen where Jim Carrey is listening to a tape of himself badmouthing his forgotten lover. 

“Sometimes… I wish I could forget Dad. And Jess.” He stops, swallows hard. “Just… not forever, but for a little while, sometimes, you know?”

And it’s true, but he normally would never say so to Dean—at least, not without Dean pushing him to talk. But he wants, really needs, to see Dean care about something, and Sam’s still programmed to expect Dean to sit up, edged with anger and full of impassioned righteousness. To tell Sam, _Don’t talk about Dad like that!_ , and explain to Sam how their memories make them who they are, and the fact that they remember is what keeps Dad and Jess alive. That they have to go on living, remembering them, for any of it to mean anything. But there’s nothing. Emptiness. Silence, as Jim Carrey on the screen goes on listening to his recording.

He turns to look at Dean, to see if there’s understanding, anger, _anything_ in his brother’s face. But Dean’s staring at the TV again with a blank expression, like he didn’t hear a word Sam just said.

When the movie’s over, Dean gets up and goes over to the other bed without a word, turns on his side away from Sam, and curls up under the covers.

Sam thinks maybe Dean is broken. Broken, and Sam doesn’t know what to do because all his life Dean’s always been the one who knows how to fix things. 

Dean always said Sam was the strong one, but Sam can’t feel that, can’t touch it, doesn’t know _how_. There’s an empty, ragged hole in his chest that cries out Daddy and an ache across his heart written in the name Dean, and for the first time in his life, Sam feels completely alone.

And it’s terrible, and selfish, and completely unfair, but he wants Dean to take care of him, give him comfort, just like Dean’s always done.

Sam turns off the light, lays flat on his back, and listens to the sound of Dean breathing. He knows exactly when his brother falls asleep, a deep, regular pattern of in-and-out that Sam hears all too infrequently these days. It’s a sound that takes him back to childhood, when Dean’s slow, even breathing meant _warm_ and _safe_ and _home_. No matter how haunted Dean’s eyes may get, he still breathes just the same, and the sound makes Sam’s chest loosen, makes his eyelids heavy until the dull red glow of neon light from outside slips away and he drifts into dreaming.

And if those dreams are filled with strong arms that hold him, rock him close in time with the sound of a heart beat, surrounded by the smell of denim and leather, well, he really can’t be blamed, now can he?

*

_Day 17_

Sam’s laying in his lumpy motel bed, listening to Dean thrash around like he’s cutting a swath through the Amazon rainforest. He considers waking Dean up, but he’s not sure if it’s a nightmare or a… whatever the opposite of a nightmare is. Considering Dean’s temper at being woken unless somebody’s dead or dying, Sam’s just beginning to think about taking his chances and waking Dean up anyway, when he hears Dean whimper. Dean. _Whimper_. The foreign sound sends a shiver down Sam’s spine, and he sits bolt upright in bed.

He hears Dean gasp, sees his brother sit halfway up in the washed out moonlight, his hands scrabbling across the mattress. And then, he hears Dean sigh, sees him fall back down against the bed, and Sam lets go a silent breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“Dean?”

“Just a dream.” Dean’s voice is gruff, filled with a pain Sam’s never heard before.

Sam lays there for a couple of minutes, listening to his brother’s shaky breathing, Dean’s whimper echoing in his ears. Whatever Dean had dreamed about, it had shaken him, scared the hell out of him, and there aren’t that many things that really scare Dean.

But Sam’s just added a new thing to his own “scare” list, and his heart’s still thudding in his chest.

He chews on his lower lip, debating, and finally slides from between the sheets of his bed.

“I told you it was a dream, Sammy. Go back to bed. I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.”

There are only certain ways that men who are not gay are allowed to touch each other. There are rules, unwritten and unspoken, lines that simply aren’t crossed, unless done deliberately for humor, and very much in public. They vary a little bit, maybe, from acquaintance, to close friend to family member, but never deviate beyond a certain, fixed point. All men know these rules and that point, intrinsically.

As Sam slides up behind Dean, fitting his upper body against his older brother’s back, they both know he’s violating every single one of those rules. He feels his brother stiffen, draw breath as if about to speak, and so Sam throws his arm around Dean, careful to angle his lower body away from his brother’s, and pulls Dean in a tight hug, holding him close. Dean tenses for a moment, and then all the tension drains out of him with a sigh. Dean falls over the edge of sleep within a few minutes, and Sam follows, shortly behind.

It’s the best night of sleep he’s had since he left Stanford.

*  
 _Day 18_

Dean doesn’t want to talk about it—Sam can tell right away in the morning. But that’s okay with Sam for once, because Dean suddenly seems more like ‘Dean’ than he has in weeks.

*

_Day 20_

They’re standing on a street corner in front of a Denny’s in Missouri City, and Dean’s putting change into the local newspaper box. Sam’s just standing there behind him, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, staring absent mindedly down the back of his brother’s neck.

Neither of them has showered since they left the last motel two days ago, and Dean smells like sweat and the leathery seats of the Impala. Which should be a lot grosser than it actually is.

“Sam?” Dean hasn’t moved, except to open up the newspaper.

“Yeah?”

And now Dean turns around, tilting his chin up at Sam, eyes filled with amused insolence. “You mind not breathin down my neck?”

For a second, Sam is caught by the white evenness of Dean’s teeth, the way his mouth moves as he speaks. And then, slowly, it dawns. “Oh. Sorry.”

And just then, with fortuitous timing, a cute little brunette girl turns the corner on her way to somewhere else, and smiles at them both. They both turn their heads to look at her, smile back, and she says, “Aw, you two are so cute together.”

Sam and Dean look back at each other, blinking confusion. And then it hits them both at the same time, how close they’re standing to each other, how Dean had been thrusting his face up into Sam’s.

In unspoken agreement, they both take a quick step back from each other.

They spend an awkward second in silence, eyes shifting, and then they both bust out laughing.

Dean claps him on the back, still chuckling. “Come on, ‘honey’. We’ve got places to be.”

*

_Day 24_

They’re somewhere in Kansas when it happens, and Sam doesn’t find that amusing so much as he does ironic.

There’s a story in the paper about a mysterious death; a little girl who’d died in the shallow creek behind her home. Dean thinks maybe it’s a haunting, and they go to check it out. But nothing else happens, and the little girl’s spirit rests quietly, and for once, they get to actually laugh and relax and not have it come back to bite them in the ass later.

They blow off some steam at a local pool hall, playing a couple rounds for fun instead of cash. Have a couple of beers, and by the time they leave, Dean’s expression is approximating something that might even be a smile.

They get in the car and Dean goes from zero to happy, humming and slapping a hand against his thigh in time to his own heavy metal mental montage. 

“Put in _Back in Black_ , Sam.” 

Sam rifles through the box of cassettes, distracted and encouraged by his brother’s unusual (lately, anyway) happiness. He finds the tape and pulls it out, and apparently, Dean’s waiting for the music to start before he starts the car. Sam leans across the seat, and slides in the tape, his shoulder accidentally brushing against Dean’s, their arms resting against each other. Sam is violently aware of his brother’s warmth, the tiny touch of skin to skin for a split second before Sam senses Dean shift, senses something else, deeper, sharp and bright. Sam glances over to find Dean staring at him, something Sam can’t quite put a name to in his brother’s eyes. Something soul-deep and filled with years.

He smells like old denim and soap, gun oil and the open road, so utterly Dean. Like the only home Sam’s ever known, like safety, and life itself.

He doesn’t think about it. Just leans in and presses his lips against his brother’s. 

And maybe all the time together on the road has twisted Sam’s head up inside out, but it all makes a certain kind of sense. The kind of sense that’s perfect, actually. And if this is what it takes to bring Dean back to him, to pull Dean back from the desolate edge he’s been walking on, then so be it.

Sam flicks his tongue out, tracing the shape of his brother’s lips, gliding over the soft, perfect swell, then presses deeper, opens his mouth.

Dean’s stays closed for split second, warm, and trembling, and then it’s like a flood breaks inside him. His mouth opens, hot and eager, groaning up into Sam, fingers clutching in Sam’s hair and fisting, pulling him in deep and tight and closer, closer. Dean kisses like he fights; uses his whole body, all the force of his strength and every ounce of his passion, and kissing him back is like kissing fire, bright and consuming, devouring Sam from the inside out. Hands in Sam’s hair, pulling him closer, and he’s rising out of the seat, one hand on the back of Dean’s head and the other digging deep into his brother’s hip, and God, why had he waited so long to do this?

“Fuck, Dean.” Whispered molten heat against his brother’s mouth, wet sweetness—

And then suddenly he’s back on the other side of the car, spine shoved up against the cold door of the Impala, mouth empty, but still slick and hot and tasting like Dean.

“What?” Sam asks, breathless.

Dean’s so beautiful, all sharp angles and gold skin full of need, lips kissed red and full, eyes glazed with desire burning bright and sharp, and Sam’s reaching for him again before Dean can even catch his breath.

He twists from Sam’s grasp, catches Sam’s hands by the wrists, shoves him back against the door.

“Dean? What the hell?” 

“I was just about to ask you the same thing!” Dean says, still breathing hard, not giving an inch, and Sam didn’t leave a mark on him, but he can see the bruises rising in his brother’s eyes. 

“I—“

“You _kissed_ me!” Dean snaps before Sam can even form a sentence.

“You kissed me back!” Sam snaps back, patience leaving him.

Dean arches a brow at him. “What are you, two?”

Sam sets his jaw, glowering at his big brother from behind his bangs. “You kissed me back, Dean,” he repeats with finality.

And finally Dean’s eyes stutter, and he looks away, out the dusty glass window.

They sit that way in silence for a while, not looking at each other, hardly even moving. All around them, outside, Sam can hear the low hum of insects rising in a choir, feel the warm summer breeze cresting in through the window. Summer. He’s always loved summer. Days and days in hot, bright sunlight, sticky with sweat and swelling with laughter, just him and Dean, their whole lives ahead of them.

“So. You want to stop for a late night dinner somewhere?” Dean asks.

Sam stares at him incredulously. “No. I do _not_ want to stop for a late night dinner.”

“Okay, then.” Dean nods, reaches for the ignition key. “We can just keep on driving till morning, find a diner or something once the sun hits.”

“Dean—“

“Toss me some Metallica, Sam.”

“Dean. We have to talk about this, we can’t just—“

“Talk about what, Sam?” Dean’s voice is hard, and cold, and for the first time ever, Sam wishes Dean would go back to calling him Sammy, instead.

“You kissed me back, Dean,” he says softly. “Like you meant it.” 

Dean makes a low sound that might be a growl, warning Sam away, and despite himself, Sam feels a dangerous thrill shoot through him all the way down to his toes. And that reaction is new, but Dean’s response isn’t, and Sam plows right through the warning.

“So why are you sitting there like it never happened?”

“You’re not gonna let this go, are you?” Dean says with a sideswiping glare at Sam. 

“Come on, Dean. Tell me you’ve never thought about it.” He looks over at his older brother, all defiance, stomach flip-flopping on the inside where no one can see it. 

“Thought about what?” Dean demands.

Sam just arches his brows at his brother and puts on his best ‘Don’t pretend to be a fucking idiot, okay?’ face.

“Christ,” Dean mutters under his breath. “You’re a sick puppy, Sam, you know that? You think I –“

“I’ve seen the way you look at me, sometimes, when you think I’m not paying attention. And sometimes when I am.”

Dean closes his eyes like he might be dying. “Christ,” he says again, covering his face with his hands.

“Dean—“

“Don’t you dare tell me this is okay, Sam!” His head snaps up and he looks fiercely at Sam. “Nothing about this is even _close_ to fuckin ‘okay’.” Dean cocks his head and slants his eyes at Sam, sick and grim. “You’re my _brother_. 

“I know,” Sam replies quietly, meeting Dean’s eyes. He wants to say more, so much more, but Dean sounds like he’s going to keep talking, and Sam really wants to hear what he’s going to say.

“This life’s taken too much from you already, Sammy.” Dean turns his face away, profile caught in the half-light of the moon—so fucking gorgeous. Can’t he see? Doesn’t he know? “I can’t let it take… this, too.” Dean shakes his head once in firm denial. “ **I** can’t be the one to take it,” he says, voice low.

“What?” Sam can’t quite hold back the tiny laugh that escapes him, though there’s no humor in it. “No, Dean. You don’t ever take anything. You’re the one that gives. You always have been.” Eyes wide, beseeching. “You give. Jesus, Dean. Don’t you know that?”

A muscle in Dean’s jaw twitches, his eyes hard and brittle, unmoved and elsewhere as they stare out into space somewhere across the darkened landscape. 

“I was glad when Jess died.”

Sam stops, frozen as if he’s been slapped, breath catching like ice in his chest. “What?”

“When she died, I was…” Dean hesitates, stumbles over the words. “Part of me was glad.” His voice takes on a thick quality that Sam knows is equal parts emotion and disgust. “Jess died, and I got you back. And I thought that was fair, because I needed you more than—“ he breaks off, shakes his head, takes a deep breath. He turns an agonized gaze on his brother, his soul in his eyes, naked and ripping apart before Sam’s eyes. “Part of me was _glad_.”

“Dean…” Sam just stares, ache in his heart. “You didn’t—“

Dean cuts him off, roughly. “Don’t. Don’t try to make this right. You can still have a normal life, Sam. The kind of life you were meant to have. You’d be… I dunno,” his hand makes an angry motion at the air, “ _good_ at it. Me, all I’m good for is this.” He pins Sam with fierce eyes, brilliant and burning. “And we both know how this life ends.” Pain, destruction, death staring out at Sam, and Dean’s eyes are filled with liquid fire. “You don’t deserve to get dragged down with me.”

“So you’re gonna save me from yourself, is that it?” Sam demands, voice rising, anger blazing like a thin bright wire inside his chest, constricting his breath, squeezing his heart. “Damn, Dean. I knew you had a martyr complex, but this—“

“Don’t you get it, Sam?” And now Dean’s yelling, leaning forward into Sam’s face. “You deserve a better life! One day, you’re gonna realize that—or you’re gonna stay here and die. You’re gonna die or you’re gonna leave, and either way it’s gonna _kill_ me!” 

Dean stops abruptly, as if shocked by his own words. His eyes are wide, flecks of gold caught in helpless green.

“Either way, it’s gonna kill me,” he says, more softly, and his voice spills out like broken glass, ragged and harsh. “But this… Sammy…” his fingers touch his lips where Sam kissed him, “ _this_ … makes me _want_ to die.”

For a moment, there is only the sound of heavy breathing as Dean stares Sam down, something sad and fleeting in his face.

Then, Dean turns away, cranks the ignition key, pops into gear and jams on the gas.

*

It’s all different, after that. Color, vibrancy and sound spill out of Dean, slopping over the edges. He’s too bright, too quick to make a snide a remark, too prone to crack a joke in poor taste. It’s like Dean looked around and figured out he’d better start dancing and entertaining Sammy again, jerking his way clumsily through some kind of clown dance, hoping his little brother might be distracted enough to forget that a few days ago, he’d had Dean’s tongue shoved halfway down his throat. 

It’s sweet, in its way, at first. But then the glint in Dean’s eyes starts to get feverish, and then desperate, his smiles too wide and too tight, and Sam can’t shake the creepy feeling that he lost Dean somewhere back down the road and ended up with this facsimile that’s been photocopied so many times that it’s more like a caricature than the real thing. 

They’re sick. They’re sick, and they’re broken, and neither one of them knows how to put it all back together.

*  
 _Day 27_

At a tiny, run down excuse for a diner, Dean flirts outrageously with their waitress, and Sam thinks he might have gotten some bad orange juice, because he feels slightly ill and Dean’s just going on and on and on, laying on the charm and laying it on thick, and Christ, does this woman ever stop giggling?

Georgia—yeah, that’s her name—grins at Dean and bats her lashes, bounces off in cut-off shorts that barely cover her ass to go get their food, and Dean watches her go, tilting his head to take in the view. 

She comes back and leans in, long blond hair brushing against Sam with the faint scent of strawberries and bubble gum, arm grazing his as she sets his plate down. Dean’s taking advantage of the opportunity to stare down her tank top, and Sam eyes his poached eggs, feels his stomach twist again.

Dean watches her go, grinning like an idiot until she’s out of sight. Then he leans in, lowering his voice. “So… Georgia. Whaddaya think, Sammy? Think she tastes like a peach?”

He rolls his eyes at Dean, tries to think of something to say, but comes up blank. Finally settles for glaring at his brother disapprovingly from the distance on the other side of the booth.

He eventually caves to his hunger, actually manages to eat a few forkfuls of cold eggs before Georgia returns, scrap of green-blue diner bill in her hand. Sees her signature at the bottom, rounded and girlish, the “I” dotted with a circle. Phone number scrawled beneath. Jutting her hip and smiling at his brother like she’d like to add him to the menu.

So easy. It’s always so easy for Dean. Those cheekbones, that mouth, those eyes.

When Dean asks her out, she giggles like a school girl, and Sam excuses himself to the restroom.

Christ, he really _is_ going to be sick.

-

Dean’s whistling on the way back to the motel and Sam tries to shut out the sound, glaring at his brother from his slouch against the passenger door. But Dean’s oblivious—or at least, he’s pretending to be—so Sam decides to really slouch and settle in for the long term, just when they arrive back at the dilapidated white and mint-green tacky hotel building.

He lopes in after his brother, lays face down on the coolness of scratchy cotton pillows, and listens to Dean hum and sing absent mindedly as he gets ready for his date. It’s like clockwork, such an ingrained habit that Sam doubts he could thwart Dean’s Pavlovian response to said date, even if Sam wanted to try. It was just… so _Dean_.

He thinks about Georgia, his hips pressing uncomfortably into the slightly sagging mattress. Adjusts his position, gasping lightly when his dick scrapes across the sheets through his clothing. He stills, listens carefully as Dean finishes his ritual. Listens as his brother picks up the keys and opens the door, barely breathing as he hears Dean say goodbye.

After Dean’s gone, Sam rocks his hips slowly into the mattress, thinking about Georgia and the all the things Dean wants to do to her. Dean's mouth, Dean’s hands, Dean’s cock, all over her, on her and inside her—

He comes, spilling into his shorts and mouthing Dean’s name into the pillow.

*  
 _Day 28_

By the time Dean gets back in the morning, Sam’s already almost finished packing. He winds up the cord to his laptop, easily imagining Dean’s state of dishevelment from the night before. He’s seen it enough times; Dean’s hair, plastered down around his forehead, spikes sticking out at every angle, eyes bleary and tired, puffy around the edges but bright at the center, like he’d just spent the entire evening accepting an Academy Award for his stellar performance. Big, silly grin plastered on his angular features, like a little boy with a favorite toy, warm afterglow lingering on his skin for hours afterward.

And maybe he knows just a little too much about his brother’s sex life.

He hears Dean stop in the room and waits, holding his breath.

But then Dean’s footsteps move toward the bathroom, and Sam is relieved and disappointed all at once. Something tightens in his chest, and he finds the words leaving his mouth before he has a chance to think them through.

“Did she taste like a peach?”

His cheeks flush hot and he lowers his head when Dean asks him to repeat the question. Sam’s a gentleman, he doesn’t ask questions like this—EVER—but he feels a truly burning need to know, if for no other reason than to dig under his brother’s skin, and God, things are definitely _not_ okay.

And all Dean says is, “No.” Just one word, and then he’s gone into the bathroom, lost to the sound of the shower, and somehow, the fact that Dean told him the truth instead of making a crass joke hurts worst of all.

They’re not going to make it through this.

*

_Day 29_

There’s a case in Oklahoma that sounds like it’s right up their alley, and Sam’s actually glad to have something else to focus on.

He really should have known better.

*

**Dean**

_Day 6_

“Were you really gonna marry her?” Dean asks, because sometimes, demons said things that were true if they thought it would do maximum damage. And Dean doesn’t want maximum damage. Dean wants his Dad back. Wants his brother back, whole and unbroken. And all Sam does is stare out the window, forehead pressed against the glass like the little boy he used to be, watching the last town fade into the distance behind them.

“I wanted to,” Sam says after a pause so long that Dean has already decided his little brother isn’t going to answer. Dean's fingers tighten, knuckles turning white around the steering wheel. It’s all he needs to hear. But Sam isn’t finished.

“She… took care of me.”

Sam says a few more words after that, but Dean doesn’t hear any of them. Just stares out at the road through his sunglasses and waits until he’s sure Sam is finished, and then cranks up the radio until he can’t hear or think anything else but Led Zeppelin.

*  
 _Day 11_

Dean’s staring out the window at gathering thunderclouds that remind him of a farm they’d stayed on out in Montana years ago, where the storms sprang up so fast in summer that you barely had time to hike up your pants legs before your boots were soaked. The sky would burst open like a ripe fruit with the sound of a deafening thunderclap, and the horses in the barn would whinny and rear, kicking dust up off the wooden gates of their pens. 

He and Sammy used to go up there and hide when it stormed, stare out the open door of the loft into the thrashing wind and sluicing rain, hair blowing back from their faces, grinning and wild and free, hay scratching at their bodies and making them itch as they lay side by side.

He remembers Sam’s face, turned up at him and laughing, his arms thrown high and wide as the wind swept through the barn loft like a banshee, laughing like it was the best thing in the world and it could only be better if the wind picked him up and carried him off through the skies. Now-Dean gazes down at his Then-little brother, thinking he’s never seen Sam so happy, before or since.

He vaguely understands that Now-Sam has actually said something to him for the first time in four days (not that he’s counting), but it takes a moment to pull from the memory, from the infectious bliss of little Sammy’s smile and the Then-and-Now bursting pride of an older brother. 

“What?”

 _Do you think you would have asked Cassie to marry you?_ The question registers belatedly in Dean’s head, and the answer springs immediately to his lips.

“No.”

He turns back toward the window, remembers Sammy standing in the doorway of the loft, storm raging behind him, his tiny face scrunched up in a frown that clearly dared Dean to try and stop him from standing there. Remembers Cassie looking up at him in much the same way, so many years later.

“Maybe.”

Sammy’s being such a _girl_. Wanting to know if Dean ever thought about “could be’s” or “what might have been’s”. Of course he has. He’s human, isn’t he? What kind of person does Sammy think Dean is, anyway? He just doesn’t hold onto to those thoughts with the kind of death grip that makes his entire life angst-filled and miserable, like some little brothers he could name.

But things had been different then. He hadn’t had Sammy anymore, hadn’t really ever had Dad at all. And oh, he knew Dad had loved them both well enough—the best that he could—he just hadn’t had much leftover to give either of them at the end of the day. And Dad had known that better than any of them; when Mom had died, he’d taken vengeance as his bride and never looked back, except to smile occasionally at his boys with a tight sadness and the lines in his face that always read “I love you so much, but there are things more important than either of you.” But it didn’t matter to Dean, had never mattered Dean. He’d loved his Daddy and always given him the proper respect a father deserved. He’d thought, if he loved hard enough, tried hard enough, then maybe… but it had never been enough, and that had hurt. But bad as it was, it was a bee sting compared to the pain when Sammy left. And Cassie had been so vibrant, so alive, such a pain in the ass… so much like…

He remembers how he and Sammy both had stood in the doorway of the loft, their arms lifted up toward the sky, hands clasped, wind buffeting them and shoving them dangerously close to the edge, their uncaring laughter snatched away by its shrieking sound. 

“You’re as much girlfriend as I can handle.”

And it’s a joke, just a stupid joke to get Sammy to leave him alone, but somehow, it doesn’t come out quite right. There’s a thickness to his tone that he doesn’t quite recognize, a reverberation in his chest all at once familiar and strange.

He turns his face up, watches the rain fall.

*

_Day 13_

Dean sighs and bunches the motel bed pillow up, letting his chin fall on the crest, and tries his best not to look bored out of his skull.

“You know, for a Jim Carrey movie, this isn’t very funny.”

“It is kind of interesting though. Don’t you think?” And Sam’s got that look like he’s digging around in Dean’s brain, looking for things. Dean knows that look a mile away, knows exactly what it means, and he’s not gonna touch it with a ten-foot pole. He shrugs his shoulders at Sam, eyes fixed dully on the bleary TV screen. 

“I mean, it poses some interesting questions. Like, if you could have certain memories erased, would you? _Should_ you?”

Dean turns his head slightly, arches a brow at Sammy. It’s not like Dean hasn’t been sitting here for the last hour and a half or whatever, thinking about his own memories and what might be cool to get rid of. He’s not in the mood to talk about it though. In fact, this is the part where he’d usually crack some witty joke and change the subject. But considering the gravity of the memories he’s been thinking about doing away with, he’s not much in the mood to joke. He looks back at the TV without saying anything to Sam, suddenly wishing he hadn’t spoken at all.

“Sometimes… I wish I could forget Dad. And Jess.” Sam hesitates. “Not forever, but for a little while, sometimes, you know?”

Dean’s heart thuds in his chest, and he freezes the neutral expression on his face, trying not to let Sam see just how hard that hits him in the gut. 

Because Dean wouldn’t mind getting rid of those memories himself. Hell, he’d like to throw Mom in there, too, and while he’s at it, maybe give Sammy a full brain scrub and an actual chance at a real life. Right now, it would be the sweetest thing he could imagine, just to be able to forget for a while. And there’s no way he can tell his baby brother that. Not when Sam’s looking to him to be the strong one. Hell, if he says anything at all, he might just lose his pile of chips completely, and he can’t let Sam see that.

He doesn’t hear a word of the rest of the movie, gets the gist, though, the message, as it were. He knows. Memories make us who we are, we learn from them, need to keep them in order for those things to have meaning. 

But he just can’t make himself okay with that right now.

He gets in his own bed and turns on his side, draws his knees up and closes his eyes.

It’s a long time before sleep comes, and when it does, he thinks maybe it’s only because he knows Sammy’s still awake, listening to Dean breathe, waiting for Dean to fall asleep.

Maybe in the morning things will look different.

*  
 _Day 17_

Sammy’s walking down a dark highway, the pavement so black it could be made of coal. White lines tick down the center of it, smooth and perfect as they lead off to the horizon, meeting the steel gray sky that swirls like a vortex. It whirls and yawns like an open mouth above Sammy and the land spreads out below, flat and barren in every direction. From within the maw of the sky, lightning erupts in sprays of bolts that race through the air, weaving through it like lattice.

Dean knows, knows before it happens. He runs toward Sammy in slow motion, arms outstretched, trying to scream, but no sound comes from his chest, and the sky growls like a living thing. The lightning converges all at once, becomes a single bolt of force that shoots straight down and hits Sammy in the back, driving him to his knees.

Too slow, too slow, and by the time Dean reaches him, catches him in his arms, he can smell charred skin and ozone. Holds Sammy tight and rocks him close, trying to ignore how wrong, how broken his brother feels in his arms. Screams his rage at the swirling sky, and the sky stares back with yellow, slitted eyes. He hears a sound like laughter in the distance, and then Sammy’s body twitches, coming alive in his arms.

Dean looks down just as his brother looks up, Sammy’s yellow, slitted eyes glaring at Dean, his grin brighter and sharper than Dean’s ever seen.

No. Not Sam. He can’t lose Sam, too.

He jerks awake, grappling with the bed in the darkness, then realizes where he is and heaves a sigh, slumping back down against the mattress.

“Dean?”

“Just a dream,” he answers.

Just a dream. But the feeling stays, and he lies there in the darkness, breathing heavy, staring at the wall with wide, sleepless eyes.

He hears Sammy move after a few minutes, get up and walk over to Dean’s bed. 

“I told you it was a dream, Sammy. Go back to bed. I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.”

And then Sammy’s sliding under the covers with him, pressing his chest against Dean’s back, and Dean’s suddenly reminded of when they were little and they used to share a bed.

Yeah. When they were _kids_ , which is normal. This, is _not_ normal, and they’re crossing at least half a dozen lines right now—

Sammy throws an arm around him, pulls him in tight, and Dean freezes for a second, suddenly freaked out by the whole thing. The dream was bad enough, but this… this is just wrong. 

Except… it’s Sammy, and how that could really be wrong, Dean isn’t sure. And the second Sammy’s body touches his, Dean feels the cold, sleepless thing in his soul settle down, feels his chest fill with warmth, and his eyes slide closed.

There are no more bad dreams that night.

*  
 _Day 18_

He wakes up with Sammy tangled all around him, and damn, the kid always was a bed hog. He extracts himself, carefully, without waking Sam, and walks to the bathroom. 

They don’t talk about it. But after that, things get a little better.

*

_Day 21_

Dean’s putting change into a local newspaper box in front of a Denny’s in Missouri City. They haven’t been driving with any kind of mission for the last three weeks, just driving down the highways and the back roads, trying to leave behind the feeling that something vital has been lost forever. The newspaper feels good in Dean’s hands, familiar and understood, and it feels like a step. A little like betrayal but a lot like relief, and he’s beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, the world might go back to spinning at a normal pace.

That is, if Sammy would stop standing so close behind him, breathing down Dean’s neck. He’s seriously invading Dean’s personal space in a way Dean doesn’t usually mind, but Sammy’s breath is warm, tickling the hair on the back of his neck, and it’s a little bit like—

“Sammy?” he says, and then turns around, leaning up into his brother’s face a little. “You mind not breathing down my neck?” And there it is, the start of little smirk settling in on Dean’s mouth that feels more like starting to move on than anything else he’s done so far.

But Christ, Sam’s just _staring_ at him, like he’s never seen Dean before, and Dean’s about to snap his fingers to drag Sam out of wherever Sam’s lost right now, when his brother finally answers him.

And hello, cute brunette at 4 o’clock. He turns his head to smile at her, and then she opens her mouth and says the strangest thing Dean’s heard all day.

“Aw, you two are so cute together.”

He looks back at Sam, both of them confused, and then it strikes him how close they’d been standing, how he’d been lifting his face up to—

Quickly, he steps back and so does Sam.

The brunette’s already gone, and how weird is it that the strangest thing that’s happened all day feels more normal than anything else has in weeks? 

“Come on ‘honey’,” he says, laughing.

*

_Day 24_

There’s a story in a local paper in Kansas about a mysterious death; a little girl who’d died in the shallow creek behind her home. Sam’s all gung-ho to go check it out, so Dean makes the customary arguments against the minimal evidence, and then tags along. But nothing else happens, and the little girl’s spirit rests quietly, and for once, Sam actually chills out and relaxes.

It’s Dean’s suggestion to go to the local bar, and amazingly, Sam actually agrees. Dean has a couple of beers and some onion rings once they get there, plays a couple rounds of pool with Sammy and then cons a few guys out of some cash while Sammy’s off playing pinball in the back room.

By the time they leave, Dean’s feeling pretty damned good about the night in general. He’s thinking maybe some AC/DC might be in order, to celebrate. He slides into the seat of the Impala and tells Sammy to find _Back in Black_ , already playing the title track’s guitar solo on his thigh with one hand, when Sammy leans over to slide in the tape cassette. Their shoulders brush, arms touching, and even though it’s happened a thousand times before, Dean is abruptly, completely aware of how close his little brother is.

Sam looks over at him and Dean feels a familiar tugging in his heart, like a dream half-remembered. He can feel the heat of Sam’s skin right through the long sleeved shirts he’s wearing, smell the mint flavored toothpaste on his brother’s breath, the scent of faint sweat and musk buried just beneath that. And Dean feels something pass between them, racing under his skin and along his nerves like lightning. Realizes that he’s holding his breath like waiting for a summer storm, like he’s been waiting his whole life for this moment to arrive. 

And then Sam’s kissing him, licking along his mouth like it’s sugar coated candy and there’s a prize if he can lick his way all the way through. There’s a few seconds of shock that feels like eternity as Sam opens his mouth and tries to press his tongue inside Dean’s—and then it hits him. Hits him _literally_ like a ton of bricks, and he’d always thought that was a metaphor, but it isn’t, because his mind explodes, his knees go weak and his cock stiffens, stirring in his pants, and he _wants_ this—wants _Sam_ , Christ—so much. Too much. Such a deep, all-consuming need that he wonders how he buried it all these years. It rises up now, a monster ravenous and devouring, its teeth sharp and slicing deep into Dean’s heart, reptilian tail flicking with the twitch of Dean’s dick. So hot, taste of Sam in his mouth, and the smell of Sam filling him, surrounding him, and he needs more, every inch of Sam’s skin pressed against him, and everything is Sam, Sam, Sammy, Sam. It’s the one perfect word that sums up everything in Dean’s life worth keeping, and it’s been this way since the beginning. Him and Sam against the world, side by side and back to back, always together and never apart.

“Fuck, Dean.”

And the world spirals around Dean, crashes to the ground. Real, this is real, not some guilty dream that’ll fade once he’s had some coffee and put a few miles behind him. He shoves Sam away, gasping for air. Something in his heart cracks, crying out, and he has a moment to wonder if it’ll ever fit in his chest right again—and then Sam’s coming at him again. And God, if he lets Sam touch him again—

He twists away and shoves for all he’s worth. Sam’s angry, demanding to know what Dean’s problem is, and Dean can’t help but fling back in his face whose idea this whole sincerely screwed up situation had been. But Sam’s not having it, calls Dean out, and finally Dean has to look away, out the front window of the car.

There’s a fine grit of road dust and pollen covering the glass, and through it, he sees not the dark hulking shapes of trees, or the twinkle of stars in the night sky, but the past; clear, sharp and gut wrenching.

Two brothers, one too young to know anything and one just old enough to understand, lose their mother one night in a rain of blood and fire. The older one carries the younger one from their burning house, saves his brother’s life that night and keeps right on saving his brother’s life. Memory of liquid fire burning behind his eyes, the feel of his little brother in his arms, the only thing he can keep, the only thing he can see, and it’s all he has, all he can hold on to, his whole life long, because both of them spend their lives on the road following a father who traded his love for a mission and who never had room for anything else in his heart and who never knew how much that hurt them both.

They’ve only ever had each other. They lost their Dad years before he died, and somehow, that only makes his death hurt worse. But now, Dean is all Sam has left, and Dean is _not_ allowed to fuck this up. He is _not_ allowed to fail. 

He does the only thing he can do, the only thing he’s good at. Sweeps it from his mind, shoves it kicking and screaming back inside the box in his heart that it came from, nails it shut.

“So. You want to stop for a late night dinner somewhere?” Dean asks. He doesn’t feel even a little bit better, not at all, but at least he can breathe again. And screw the AC/DC, what he needs right now is some Metallica. _Ride the Lightning_ , _Master of Puppets_ , it doesn’t really matter. Any pre- _Load_ port in a storm.

Sam’s giving him angry puppy eyes like he thinks Dean’s being insensitive and badgering Dean to share his feelings, and he just can’t deal with this shit right now, it’s too goddamned much, and if Sam keeps poking him, prodding him—

“Thought about what?” Dean snaps.

Sam gives him one of his patented pansy looks, and Dean wishes to God he could ignore it, but since it’s pretty much Sam’s patented look that specifically says they both know Dean’s a goddamned liar and to quit being full of crap, Dean decides to try retreating instead.

“Christ,” Dean mutters under his breath. And no, no, no, just… no. His baby brother is _not_ \--

“Don’t you dare tell me this is okay, Sam!” His head snaps up and he looks fiercely at Sam. “There’s nothing about this that’s even _close_ to fuckin ‘okay’.” 

Sam says something, but Dean is too caught inside his own mind, tangled in his own personal demons. He knows better than anyone how much this lifestyle has taken from Sammy; both his parents, the woman he loved; the happy, normal life he wanted more than anything else. And Dean can’t take this from him, too. Not Sam’s last dying hope of killing this yellow-eyed demon and maybe finding that white picket fence after all.

Sam’s spouting some crap about how Dean’s so giving and noble and whatever, and Dean bites down on the inside of his jaw, sucks in a breath. Noble. Right. The guilty coil around his heart flares, and he remembers being glad when Jess died. Not completely glad, of course. But all those years she’d gotten to spend with Sam that Dean had missed, the way Sam had looked at her, like she was the most important thing in the world… He hadn’t wanted her to die, but after she did, he’d held Sam while his brother cried, Dean’s arms wrapped around him tight, face buried in his brother’s hair, a tiny icicle of bitter glee lodged in his heart.

He wants Sam too much. Needs him, too much. And Sam doesn’t need him at all. Not anymore. Dean can’t let him stay—can’t make him stay for this dysfunctional mindfuck of a relationship that’s starting to happen here. Because if Dean does let him stay… Dean’s never going to be able to let him go. He already loves Sam to the point of stupidity and back. And if Sam kisses him like that, looks at him like that, wraps long, goofy Sam arms around Dean and loves him like _that_ , Dean really IS going to die. He can barely breathe as it is.

Sam is staring at him with wide hazel eyes, an expression on his face Dean doesn’t think he’s ever quite seen. Rejection, surprise, overwhelming emotion, and Dean wants to hug him, tell him, _No, Sammy, baby, no, it’s okay_ but, shit, if Sam starts crying, he’s gonna start crying too, and then what the hell are they gonna do?

And he can’t touch Sammy again right now, be that close to him… he just… can’t.

Hands shaking, Dean cranks the ignition key, pops the Impala into gear and jams on the gas.

*

It was better before Sammy knew, before Sammy wanted it too and Dean was allowed to know that he wanted it. Every day is torture. The light brushes up against each other that make Dean’s heart speed up, make his skin tingle. Sam coming out of the shower with a white towel slung low and lazy around his hips like nothing’s changed between them at all. And who knows? Maybe it hasn’t. Maybe Dean is crazy. Or maybe his baby brother is one hell of a cock tease, and Christ, that falls into the category of really hot things he’d be a lot happier not knowing about his brother. Lays awake at night listening to Sam breathe, hips pressed against the mattress, not quite daring to move, and the first thing he sees when he wakes up in the morning is the slow sprawl of Sam’s long limbs, lean muscles curving in the sunlight, dark hair curling down over his cheek. 

He’s strangling on Sam. Choking with him. 

*

_Day 27_

The waitress is cute, long muscular legs all the way up to the cut-offs that Daisy Duke would be proud of, and stacked nicely up top just like Dean likes them; not too big, not too small. She’s the best thing he’s seen of the female persuasion in the last couple of towns, so he turns on the charm and gives her his best, toothy grin. Tilts his head up at her and looks at her with interested eyes, asks about the town, and her hobbies, throws in a few sweet compliments, and pretty soon, she’s giving him the eye and smiling right back, and for the first time in days, Dean can focus on something other than Sam’s mouth, Sam’s hands, the slight inner crease of Sam’s hip just before it disappears into his towel.

When she walks away, Dean tilts his head to enjoy the view, then turns to his brother, trying to lighten the heavy mood Sam’s been in for days. 

“So… Georgia. Whaddaya think, Sammy? Think she tastes like a peach?” And for a second, Dean is proud; it sounds so normal. But then Sam just makes a disgusted face and flops back into his booth, staring out at Dean sullenly from beneath shaggy bangs.

Georgia returns with the bill, and predictably, her phone number. Dean decides to save her the wait time and asks her out on the spot. And hey, maybe Sammy is finally feeling better, because he gets up to go to the bathroom, leaving Dean alone with Georgia to work out the date details and work in a few more lines.

He’s whistling as they leave the diner and head back to the motel. Sam doesn’t say much, pleads a stomach ache and folds himself into the car, leaning away against the door for the entirety of the two minute trip.

Dean runs a wet comb through his hair and spikes up the tips, practices his best Blue Steel look a few times, and then flicks off the light to the bathroom. Grabs the keys and opens the door, pausing for a second in the doorway.

“Don’t wait up, Sam.” He half-whispers it, not sure if Sam is asleep or not. When Sam doesn’t move, still planted face down in a pillow, Dean hesitates a second more. Remembers chicken soup and bed time stories, Sammy staring up at him with huge hazel eyes, feverish, or his nose running, looking at Dean like he’s the coolest thing Sam has ever seen.

Dean turns away, closes the door behind him.

-

She doesn’t taste like peaches; her mouth tastes like spun sugar, gritty and sweet, and her skin is salty, faint scent of sweat and grease beneath the floral soap. They’re on the bed in seconds flat, and Dean peels off her clothes and shucks out of his own with urgent grace. Slides a hand down her thigh, snakes his fingers around one of her tanned, muscled calves and folds her leg up and pushes it to the side, runs his tongue across each nipple, leaving her gasping and arching, trailing his way down her body until his face rests between her thighs. Licks and sucks her like the sugar and limes they’d had with tequila shots at the bar. Licks until she mewls, slick against his fingers. Sucks until she comes, crying out, hips rising up off the bed and shoving hard against his chin.

He’s up the bed and on top of her before she can even catch her breath, kissing the last whimpers from her mouth. Then he’s rolling the condom onto the curve of his dick and thrusting inside her, sheathed in tight, wet, soft heat.

“Fuck. So good,” he breathes against the angle of her cheekbone, licks a line along the sensitive underside of her jaw down to her mouth. Liquor running high in his veins, blood running hot and furious, buried deep inside silken heat, and shit, he’s already about to lose it. Stares down in to her eyes, (blue, thank God, blue not hazel), pupils blown wide and glazed, thrusts and twists his hips and watches her gasp, eyes fluttering shut, and it’s easier then, twisting and thrusting and—oh, sweet christing _fuck_ —

He thinks there might be a name there, whispered on his lips in the moment he stiffens and pulses inside her. That’s never good. Worse, he’s pretty sure it’s not hers. And for a split second, even worse than the mortification he feels at who it might belong to, is the sudden, blinding fear that Georgia heard him dare to utter someone else’s name while fucking her and is seconds away from trying rip his dick out by the root. But turns out it doesn’t matter, because she’s got her own litany of words streaming, most of them of the four letter variety at top volume as she seizes around him again.

After, he rolls over and falls into the bed next to her, collapsing in a sweat-soaked heap. As he descends into drunken sleep, he feels weight shift next to him, skin, naked and warm pressed along his length. Beginning to dream, he slips an arm around the body next to him and pulls it close, dream mouth shaping the name he’d spoken aloud only minutes ago.

*  
 _Day 28_

He wakes up with his cock rock hard, hot, tiny fingers teasing him, sliding a condom on, palm pressing down against him with delicious pressure.

He rolls over to where she’s already wet and waiting, pushes inside her with one quick thrust. Covers her mouth with his, hot and slick, bites her lip and whispers baby—but his heart betrays him, whispers something else, and he squeezes his eyes shut, kisses her harder. Fucks her long and hard until she screams, his whole world narrowing to the point of his cock as her muscles clamp down against him, milking him dry. Slides down her body and licks her clean. Sucks her clit, twisting and pinching it between his lips until her hips buck and she comes again. 

Makes his exit with a hasty smile and a quick kiss, sliding sunglasses onto his face as he walks out the door. Gets into the Impala and starts the engine, mouth thick with the taste of her. Tries not to think about the bitterness at the back of his throat, and why it haunts him so much more than the sweetness she left on his lips.

*

Sam doesn’t speak to him when Dean gets back to the motel. Just keeps winding up his laptop cord in the thin gray light filtering in through the windows and keeps his back turned away.

Dean debates the wisdom of saying something, hesitates for a moment in the middle of the room, then wonders what the fuck he could possibly say that wouldn’t be asinine and completely irrelevant (and why that should stop him now when it’s never stopped him before). Because the only thing Sammy wants to talk about is what happened between them the other night, and not only is that the _last_ thing on a very long list of things that Dean does _not_ want to talk about, but there’s also definitely nothing Dean can say to make this okay. Not enough words in the world to make this okay, to turn back time to a place where he’d never kissed his brother. Where he’d never felt—

He turns, heads for the shower without a word, wanting to wash the smell of sex off him. 

He stops just inside the bathroom door, stilled by the sound of words he thinks he might have imagined.

“What?” he almost whispers, the word catching in the roughness of his throat.

“Did she taste like a peach?”

He can tell just by the tone of Sammy’s voice that Sammy isn’t looking at him. Can imagine him standing there in limp gray light, his back still turned to Dean as he towers over his zipped suitcase.

Half a dozen replies flit through Dean’s head, flip and crass and exactly the kind of words Sam would expect, exactly the kind of words Dean would usually let fly from his mouth without running them by his brain to check for possible consequences first.

He parts his lips, runs his tongue over them, slowly shakes his head.

“No.”

The click of the bathroom door shutting seems very loud to Dean’s ears.

-

It’s not until he’s in the shower that he remembers what he’d been thinking before Sam spoke.

Turn back time? He pauses, struck by the thought. Was it possible? He’s heard stories, but he’s never paid them much mind since they don’t really apply to the shit he usually finds himself up to the neck in. Maybe he _can_ find a spell to turn back time. Take away the memory of Sam’s tongue, soft and hot, licking inside his mouth—

No. Then he’d just forget he’d had it once and do it again like in that girly movie with Jim Carrey that Sam had made him watch the other week, and then maybe next time things would end up even worse and besides… fucked up as it is, much as it’s killing him, it’s kind of a nice memory, and Dean doesn’t have too many of those.

And suddenly he isn’t sure what’s more disturbing; the fact that he has that memory at all, the fact that he finds it comforting in some weird way, or the fact that it’s making him hard.

Water pulsing, beads dripping slowly down overheated skin, he can feel them slide between his legs, over his nipples.

He closes his eyes, puts his palms flat against the tile and breathes, shower beating his back red with heat. In his mind’s eye, he can see Sam finish packing, imagine his muscles moving under the layers of shirts he always wears. Broad shoulders and lean body, narrow waist and hips…

He pushes away from the wall and shuts off the water, climbs from the tub and dries off hastily.

They’ll get through it. Put enough time and distance and women between what had happened, and whatever this rift is between them will start to heal. 

They’ll be all right.

*  
 _Day 29_

There’s a case in Oklahoma, and Dean’s more grateful than he’s ever been for something to distract himself.

Of course, that’s when everything goes straight to hell.

Literally.


	2. Chapter 2

_Day 29_

Sam sits bolt upright in the front seat of the Impala, gasping for air.

Dean turns, looking at him quizzically. 

“I was…” Sam hesitates, confused. Sits up and rubs a hand across his forehead. “Dreaming. Yeah, dreaming,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief.

Dean shifts in his seat, eyes Sam for a long moment, until Sam finally looks back at him. At which point, Dean looks back out at the road.

“What was it?” Dean asks.

Sam shakes his head, not wanting to talk about it.

“Come on, Sammy. Who knows how your crazy ass power works, anyway? It might be important.”

Images flit through Sam’s head, ashes lazy on the wind, dark shapes, sharp teeth and pitch black eyes, the smell of blood and burning flesh.

“God… so _real_.” Sam breathes.

Dean’s rolling his eyes at Sam with impatience, so Sam slowly licks his lips, pushes out the words. “It was… there was… an army of people…” He stops, shakes his head. “No. Not _people_. They… had yellow eyes. And they were… killing… slaughtering everyone.”

“And?” Dean’s voice is strained, gruff over the low sounds of Jefferson Airplane from the radio.

“Dean… I was… I was leading them,” he finishes, looking at Dean with frightened eyes.

He’s waiting for Dean to crack a joke, or laugh, but instead of laughing, Dean sucks in a breath, hand tensing on the steering wheel.

“You know something.” It’s not a question. Sam isn’t even sure how he knows, but it’s Dean, and Sam just _knows_.

“What?” Dean glances at him with confused eyes and a pained half-grin. “No. I just had a stupid dream the other night is—“

“Don’t lie to me, Dean. This is too big to lie about.”

Dean doesn’t say anything for the longest time, just drives, trees flying by on either side of them in the dusky twilight. And then he slows the car, pulls off to the side of the road, gravel crunching beneath the Impala’s tires. He cuts the engine and sits there, hands on the keys as he stares out the window.

“What? Dean, what is it?”

Dean drops his hands and eyes to his lap, nods once. “Right before Dad… died… he told me…” Dean stops, takes a breath. “He told me to watch out for you.”

“Hell, Dean,” Sam says, feeling himself relax just the tiniest fraction. “He always told you that.”

Dean shakes his head. “This time was different.” Dean takes a deep breath, holds it, exhales. “He said… I had to save you.”

“From what?”

“He didn’t say. Just that nothing else mattered, and if I didn’t save you…”

“ _What_ , Dean?”

Dean lifts his face, stares straight ahead into the coming night. “I’d have to kill you. He said…” Turns his head, tears his eyes off the seat to flick up at Sam, blazing pain and muted anger. “He said I might have to kill you.”

“Kill—“ Sam chokes off, turning away, startled bubble of laughter escaping him. “Jesus, Dean.”

Silence for a moment, and Sam can feel something cold and prickly, worming beneath his skin. 

“Why would he say _that_?”

“I don’t know, Sammy.”

“Well he must have had a reason. Dad wouldn’t just tell you that you might have to KILL me without a… a _reason_.”

“I don’t know!” Dean’s voice is rising. “I wish I didn’t know any of it. Hell, I’ve been trying to forget since he told me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sam demands, angry now.

“I just told you! I didn’t even wanna know this, Sam. And Dad… He begged me not to.”

“You know, you and Dad with your repressed emotions—“ He breaks off, bites down hard against his tongue and shakes his head. Starts over again. “But this is _important_ , Dean. You should have told me.”

“Sorry, that’s a little difficult to work into a conversation. ‘Hey Sammy, pass the salt, and oh, by the way, right before Dad died he told me I might have to kill you one day.’ THAT’S not awkward.”

Sam curls his tongue against the inside of his cheek, shakes his head and looks at his brother. “How long were you gonna wait to tell me?”

*

Dean shifts in his seat, remembers his own dream from last week. The feel of his brother’s blasted, smoking, ruined body in his arms. He looks over, eyes touching Sammy’s face, making sure he’s still there, still whole. 

“How long were you gonna wait to tell me, Dean?” Sam turns his face, looks at Dean with those big, hazel puppy dog eyes. “Until I killed someone? Until you had to shoot me?”

Dean hesitates, swallows. “That’s not gonna happen, Sammy.”

“You can’t say that for sure!”

“Yes I can.”

“How do you know, Dean?”

“Because I’m not gonna LET it happen,” Dean explodes, turning on his brother furiously. And it’s not Sammy he’s angry at. It’s Dad, the demon, this whole fucking huge-ass mess. 

And Sam’s just staring at Dean, his eyes shining with sadness. “What if you can’t stop it?” Sammy asks, voice soft, deadly serious.

Dean can’t handle the thought of it, can’t even entertain the idea, and suddenly he can’t meet his brother’s eyes. Looks away, uncomfortable. “Come on, Sammy,” he scoffs, trying for a light tone. “Hold it together. We haven’t come across anything there wasn’t a way out of, yet, right?”

“Dean… this thing… what if it’s already part of me? What if my power gets out of control and I go dark side, like Max almost did? How do we fight that?” And there’s a tone in Sam’s voice, one Dean hasn’t heard very often, but never fails to remind him that his baby brother is all grown up now, an adult who can look after himself in his own right. Doesn’t matter if Dean doesn’t think Sam’s good enough for the job—truth is, Dean would never think anyone was good enough for the job, but it’s _Dean’s_ job, always has been, and he doesn’t trust anyone else but himself to do it.

“Then we find another way,” Dean answers, trying to sound reasonable. Truth is, he’s scared to death. Not of what Sam might become, oh no, never that. It would almost be easier if that’s all it was.

Sam snorts without humor, shaking his head. “You’re always so sure of everything.”

“That’s why I’m the older brother.”

Sam sets his jaw, doesn’t say anything, and Dean chews at the inside of his cheek, gnawing it slowly raw. “Look. Just… let’s do this job. Then we’ll take some down time. See what we can figure out about this whole thing.”

He looks over at Sam for confirmation, and it’s several long seconds before Sam finally looks him back in the eye, swallows hard and nods.

*

At the motel in Spavinaw that night, Sam scrolls through local news articles, while Dean’s sprawled out on the other bed, Dad’s journal laid out in front of him.

The case seems like a pretty open and shut vengeful spirit. It’s while Sam’s cross-referencing online for any other nearby cases that he finds it.

_Mysterious Animal Attack Claims the Lives of Three Local Students_

And following the title, in smaller print:

_Survivor Claims the Shadows Came to Life_

After that, it only takes a few more sentences to confirm the growing dread in his heart.

_…victims were clawed to death and seemingly ripped apart… species of animal responsible for the attacks is as yet unidentified, though the depth and severity of the gouges suggest a large predator, such as a mountain lion… seems to have impacted the mental health of the sole survivor… claims he escaped by lighting the flare in the vehicle emergency kit…_

Daevas.

_Shit._

With trembling fingers, he does another search, same town. Once he starts looking, the pattern is easy enough to find. And then…

_Girl, pronounced dead, gets up and walks away from lethal car crash_

There’s a picture of her. Round, pixie face, wide brown eyes beneath short cropped, bleached blond hair.

She’s a dead ringer for Meg.

_Fuck._

When Sam was five, Dean made him watch _The Warriors_ with him, like, fifty thousand times. 

That’s how he knows he’s heard this call before. Knows exactly what it means.

_“Winchesters… come out and plaaayaaaay.”_

“Sammy?”

Sam jumps, startled under the touch of Dean’s hand. “Huh?”

“What’d you find?”

“Uh…” he glances back at the screen furtively, surfs away from the new article back to the one he’d been looking at before. “Yeah. Just like we thought.” He nods emphatically, heart pounding in his throat. “Looks like an open/shut vengeful spirit.”

“Good,” Dean says, hesitating behind him for a moment. Sam glances back at his brother again, suddenly aware of the warmth of Dean’s hand on his shoulder, the light press of his fingers along Sam’s collarbone. His eyes follow his brother’s arm up to Dean’s face—and then he sucks in a deep breath at the naked emotion he sees there.

“Dean,” Sam’s voice is guttural, almost pleading, though he isn’t sure for what, and the motel walls suddenly seem to close in, pressing into his ribs, squeezing the air from him.

Their eyes lock, heat and secrets, and Dean snatches his hand away like he’d touched fire, the light in his face going out. Turns away and disappears into the bathroom.

*

Dean shuts the door to the bathroom, presses his forehead against the cheap wood prays for it to seep slow, sink in and cool him. 

What the fuck is wrong with him, anyway? His wiring’s all wrong, shot to hell. This is _Sam_ for Christ’s sake. His baby brother. And Dad’s dead and Dean knows somehow that it’s all his fault, and all he can fucking think about is how he wants to grab hold of Sam and sink into him, lose himself.

Dammit, he can’t even _think_ straight. 

He sighs, low, slow breath dragging across his lips, wants to bang his head against the door, maybe knock some sense into it, but he can’t, because Sam might hear. 

He turns, face in the mirror, haggard, eyes circled in bleak black, and Christ, he looks more dead than alive, which, really, he supposes is fair, since that’s pretty much how he feels, too.

He strips off his clothes slowly, peeling them away like layers of dreams he dare not name, throwing them to the far corner as if they might be so easily discarded. Lays his palms flat against the cold porcelain of the sink and leans forward, breathing deep. 

It doesn’t help. But then, nothing does.

He turns the shower on, squeak of rusty faucet and swimming pool cold water. Steps inside and stands beneath the spray.

Soap and shampoo. Lies and half-truths. 

He hasn’t jerked off in _days_ and it’s all Sammy’s fault.

Fine.

He slicks his hand with soap, fists his cock slow, thumbing the spot just beneath the head. Braces his other hand against the cool tile and leans in. It doesn’t take long, biting hard on his lower lip until he tastes blood and spills hard, hot and thick over his fingers. Hips rocking into his hand as he rides out the shuddering spasms, lips mouthing silent curses and never, never Sam’s name.

Maybe tonight, he can sleep.

*

Sam waits an hour after Dean’s breathing evens and deepens, then slides from between the sheets and packs his things.

He stands in the doorway to the motel, lost and breaking, staring back at his brother over his shoulder. He wants nothing more than to stay, than to not leave Dean like this—and oh, Dean’s going to hurt so bad, come morning—but he has to go. He has to know.

_Dad said I might have to kill you._

He needs answers.

It takes him several hours, walking and hitchhiking along the mostly abandoned highways in the deep hours of the night, but when he arrives, she’s waiting.

“Well,” the girl says, grinning ear to ear with savage glee as she eyes Sam up and down. “Must be my lucky day.”

She has a lot to tell him.

*

_Day 30_

“Ellen?”

“Dean? How’re you?”

“Good. Good, listen. Have you heard from Sam?”

“I’m guessing he ain’t with you, then, huh?”

“No… he… took off last night.”

“You sure nothing got him?”

“I’m sure. He packed, took all his stuff.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be found, then, Dean.”

Silence for a moment, and then, “Ellen, I have to find him. He’s… He just can’t be alone right now.”

Another long, thoughtful pause. “All right. Where are you at?”

He tells her.

“Listen, I got a hunter friend out that way, about 10 miles from you out in Bull Hollow.”

“Ellen, I appreciate it, don’t get me wrong—but how’s another hunter gonna help?”

“She knows the area like the back of her hand. It’s her territory, Dean. There’s a fair chance she can help you figure out which way Sam went quicker than you could, alone.”

Dean doesn’t say anything for a moment, considering.

“You got any better ideas?” Ellen asks.

“Right. Okay then. This gal got a name?”

*

Ronnie’s a bright, upbeat woman who’s only a little shorter than Dean. Rangy frame and leanly muscled, but sculpted like rock. Brown hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail, she could be twenty-two or thirty-two, except for the dark brown eyes that stare out at Dean with a knowing glint and a mischievous sparkle. She’s not drop-dead, doll-parts gorgeous the way Dean usually goes for, but she’s pretty in a simple, earthy way, and she moves with silent grace like a wild animal. 

“Veronica’s what the cops call me,” she’d introduced herself with a cheeky grin. “Name’s Ronnie.” She’d shaken his hand firmly, and Dean had liked her on sight.

She shakes her head, biting her lower lip over the smoking components of some kind of location spell. “No luck. He’s either out of my range, blocking my spell somehow, or somebody’s shielding him.”

“Has to be out of range,” Dean says, and she nods, pulling out several books and some roadmaps from underneath the store counter.

“So you don’t have any idea where he would have gone?” she asks, frowning over a road atlas. 

“No…” Come on, Dean, _think_. Sammy could do this. He’d know where _you_ went. Yeah. Of course it did help that his brother was freaking psychic. “I don’t…” He pauses, runs a hand through his hair. Sammy would be looking for answers about now, trying to figure out what Dad’s warning was all about. “Maybe home?”

“Where’s home?” she asks.

“Lawrence, Kansas.”

She nods, chews on the eraser of her pencil for a moment more, eyes tracing the maps, then leans down and starts making notes.

Dean paces the length of the smallish taxidermy building while she scribbles and sketches away. Eyes the grizzly head on the wall that snarls bigger than life, and looks like it could have swallowed Dean’s head whole when it was alive. The rest of the fare is pretty standard; deer, squirrels, foxes, the occasional rabbit. 

“You kill all these, yourself?” he asks, curious.

“Killed ‘em and stuffed ‘em,” she replies with a nod. “My papa died when I was a baby and my mama taught me the business when I was still little. Only one up there that ain’t mine is the deer on the end—that one was my mama’s.”

“And when you say ‘taught you the business’…”

“I mean both kinds,” she answers with a grin. “Hunting, and _hunting_.”

“Where is she now?”

“Dead. Werebear caught her, few years back.” She glances up at the trophy head on the wall. “That’s her.”

“Your mom?”

“No. The werebear.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “Sorry. Is this… is this what it did?” he asks, gesturing at some of the photos on her desk. Long, deep gashes, bodies clawed practically to pieces. Pretty morbid to keep those laying around.

“No,” she says, standing up, several sheets of paper in her hands. She moves closer to where Dean is and leans down over the desk, sifting through the files on it. “This is the case I’m working on right now.” She pulls out an old-fashioned looking book, slim and bound in peeling leather, and opens it. Taps her finger against the page, pointing at an illustration of a long, shadowy creature with clawed hands. “Daevas.” 

“Shadow demons.”

“Yeah,” she says, turning on him with sharp eyes. “You know them?”

“Not personally,” he shrugs. “But me and Sammy had a run in with a few, a couple months back. Nasty bastards.”

“Yeah,” she nods. “You’re lucky to be alive.” She meets his eyes as she hands him the papers, and he sees something flicker in her, realizes she’s standing just a little too close. “Here’s the quickest routes to Lawrence, and a couple of major cities around the area. I don’t know how much they’ll help… I’m sorry.” Christ, she’s got eyes like Sammy, genuine and soul deep.

“Thanks,” Dean says, voice low and rough, holds her eyes for a second and then steps back.

“You know they have to be summoned.”

“What?”

“Daevas. Someone has to summon and control them. So who sent them after you?”

“Oh, right. Possessed girl, name of Meg.”

“A demon? That makes so much sense,” she says, sounding mildly excited. “It’d take something stronger willed than a human to bend a Daeva to its will. I wonder if…” and she’s turning away, reaching for another book, obviously excited, now.

“Thanks,” Dean says, backing out towards the door. She doesn’t even look up, just kinda waves at him halfheartedly. Huh. 

He goes out through the shop door, bell jangling merrily behind him.

*

Back on the road, Dean’s glad for the comfort of the steering wheel under his palm, the feeling of control back in his body. He might not know where Sammy is, but so long as he’s in the car and he’s moving, so long as he’s trying, he’s all right.

That’s what he keeps telling the blind panic thrashing around in his stomach, anyway.

And that’s okay, because he’s got something even more irritating wiggling around in his mind. 

_Claw marks slashed across his face, Dad pinned to the wall, being ripped apart—_

He slams on the brakes, letting the car spin all the way back around before he punches the gas, hurtling back the way he came. The phone’s in his hand almost before the tires have stopped squealing, Ronnie’s number still first in the recently dialed queue.

“Ronnie, the case you’re working on, you got any idea where the person who’s directing those Daevas might be holed up?”

“Dean? Well, yeah, I mean. Not for sure, but they seem to be centered around—Wait. What’s going on?”

“I think that’s where Sam is. And I need to be there, right now.”

“Dean! You can’t go just rushing in there! The Daevas are deadly enough on their own—“

“Ronnie. Sam’s there. Please. _Tell me_.”

She does.

*

Nine miles north of Ronnie’s place, he pulls the Impala off alongside the road, cruising to a stop in the damp grass. The engine has barely stopped purring when he opens the trunk. 

Beneath the pale light of the rising moon, he wishes he had the Colt, itching for the feel of its weight against his palm. Only one bullet left, and he knows damned well Sammy and Dad both would kill him if he wasted it trying to save Sam—-again.

_You and me, we're all that's left, so if we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together._

Goddamned right, they are. And Hell itself isn’t big enough to get in the way of that.

He loads the rock salt shells into the shotgun, and pops it shut with a jerk of his wrist.

Cool, sleek, oiled metal in his hands; nothing like it when it comes to comfort.

And a handgun lodged at the base of his spine, just in case.

*

Sam works at the ropes around his wrists, twisting and sliding them. He’s lying on his side on the hard wooden floor where the demon left him. It’s dark here, and he can just barely make out the dimensions of the room in the feeble moonlight.

He pauses, hearing the creak of what might be a footstep against the wooden planks outside the door. Holds his breath, twisting his hands harder as two feet step into view, blocking the light seeping under the door.

The door falls open silently, and the lights switch on, and Sam doesn’t even bother to look, working furiously and futilely against his bonds.

And then Dean’s there, standing over Sam, his face lit up with joy and relief.

“Dammit, Sam! Don’t you ever. EVER!” And then Dean’s on his knees, hugging Sam against him so hard Sam thinks he might never be able to breathe again.

“Sammy…” Dean’s got Sammy face cupped in his hands like Sam is precious, like he’s a China doll that Dean might break if he’s not very careful, and Sam can’t read his tone, there’s too many emotions wrapped around that one word, and he’s heard his brother say his name millions of times with a million different inflections, but he can’t place this one, except that it sends something secret thrilling down his spine.

Staring up at Dean, he sees something in his brothers face soften, weaken and give, feels the rough pad of Dean’s thumb scrape over his cheek, as if brushing away blood or dirt. There’s a moment, a nameless something in Dean’s eyes, something that begs forgiveness and pleads understanding all at once. Watches Dean lean down closer, Dean’s breath ghosting across his cheek—

And then Sam sees over Dean’s shoulder and he understands—understands everything with a total, sickening horror that hits him like a punch in the gut.

“Dean! Look ou—“

It happens fast, faster than Sam can follow. One second, his brother is there, staring at him with something Sam wants to understand very badly, and the next, there’s this _blur_ and a BOOM that seems loud enough to burst Sam’s eardrums wide open. 

And then Dean’s lying in his lap, long gouges raked down the length of his cheek.

*

When Dean comes to, his face is on fire and he’s bound hand and foot to a heavy, wooden chair. The room is cluttered with junk, boxes piled up on the side of the room and overflowing onto the floor, every available horizontal surface covered in odds and ends and various junk. Large, wooden cabin walls stretch away behind the clutter, and he recognizes it from when he broke in here earlier.

He turns his neck as far as he can to both sides, sights Sam on the right from the corner of his eye. He’s tied to a chair just like Dean is, and he’s about to whisper something, let his brother know he’s awake, when a voice he’s never heard before speaks up.

“Dean!” A woman’s voice, sarcastically intimate, falsely friendly. “You’re awake.”

He grimaces and tests the strength of the ropes holding him. Damned tight, just enough wiggle room to let the blood flow. That was never a good sign. Meant whoever had tied these really knew what the hell they were doing.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice, worried and strained. “You all right?”

“Fine, Sammy.”

“Well,” the girl says, coming into full view—and sonofabitch, she looks JUST like Meg and he is going to kill the hell out of Sammy when they get out of this, because Sam _had_ to have known—

“We’ll see what we can’t do to fix that, now that you’re here, Dean.” She puts her hands on his hips and looks him up and down. “You are the guest of honor, after all.”

“All this for little old me?” Dean asks with a sharp, bright grin, looking around the room. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Oh, Sam is the special one. Your Dad was right about that.” She stops, smiles over at Sam. “And about what he’ll become. But…” she turns back toward Dean, pixie-ish face grinning wolfishly. “You’re the important one in this scenario, Dean. See, you’re Sammy’s last link. The last tether holding him back from his true potential. Take you away…” she shrugs, then smiles. “Then it’s just a step to the left for Sammy boy.” She runs a hand along Dean’s shoulders, circling his chair like a shark. “No more love. No more pesky morals.”

She crouches down, bringing her face too close to his, digs her fingers deep into the hollow above his collar bone and pulls the muscle there, clearly relishing his grunt of pain. “I figure killing you slowly in front of him ought to just sweeten the deal a little, maybe even speed up the process.”

“Dean!” Sam’s struggling uselessly against his bonds, Dean can hear him. The demon’s face is close, so close he can smell the sulfur on her breath, and the pain in his shoulder is searing as she works her fingers beneath the thick strand of muscle, slowly separating it from the bone.

“You’re wrong,” he manages to grate out against the pain.

Intrigued, the demon pauses and draws back, interest lighting in the dark depths of her eyes.

“Kill me, and Sam’ll just kill your ass that much harder.” He pauses, stares at the demon for effect. “Come on! Didn’t you _see_ Star Wars? ‘Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can imagine’? All Luke needed was a reason.” 

“That’s dramatic.” She hooks the pad of her thumb under his muscle and _digs_. “Also? Naive.” As Dean groans in pain, she thrusts her face into his, grin twisting up the lower half of her face. “You really think your death can _save_ your brother’s precious soul? Tell me, Dean…” she leans in, whispering into his ear, almost purring. “How’d that work out for you and your Dad?”

It’s almost enough to drive out the pain. Almost.

“What?” The word leaves him like a shotgun crack.

“Oh come on. You’re a bright boy. You must have figured out that he made one _Hell_ of a deal for your life.” She grips him with white-hot, blood-pounding pain, mouth hot, burning his skin, hissing into his ear. “He’s burning there, right now.”

“Shut up, bitch.”

He whips his head to the side, slamming into her face as hard as he can.

Her nose drips, teeth filled with blood, pooling in the corners of her mouth, and still she grins and grins, knife bright and stone hard.

“Oh, I’m gonna enjoy taking that out of your _ass_ ,” she declares, leaping to her feet cat quick and striking him backhanded. His head snaps back in a blinding crack, then sags forward, sea of shining stars swimming behind his eyes.

“Come on, baby, let’s see what you got in there.” Malicious glee as she digs her fingers into his chest, nails scratching through his skin and then puncturing muscle beneath.

He doesn’t scream, but the full throated growl that tears from his throat comes damned close. 

_Christ_ her fucking _fingers_ are in his chest, digging under the ribs and _clawing_ \--

“Dean!” Sam’s voice, he’s panicking, and Dean really can’t blame him. “What are you doing to him?”

“Cutting out the heart of the family.”

 _Squeeze_ , and the world swims gray and black, bright red spots at its center, and it’s not so bad, really, anymore. The pain like distant thunder, rumbling as the storm moves away, up and outside his body. It pounds with the rhythm of a heartbeat, thumping, slower, and slower. Lightning flashes behind his eyes, and he tries to count to the thunder—

_Sammy huddled under the covers, eyes wide and face wet with tears, and Dean beside him, holding him through the thin scratchy material of cheap sheets._

_Come on, Sammy. It’s okay. Watch. See, there’s the lightning, now count with me—one, one thousand, two, one thousand…_

Slower now, 

_Three… one thousand…_

quicksand through his mind,

_four… one… thousand…_

Slipping, drifting…

_five…_

KRAKA-THOOM

_The world explodes all around them, thunder deafening, and he tenses reflexively, trying to cover Sam beneath him--_

*

“Dean!” Sam thrashes in his chair, vision blurring at the sounds coming from Dean. “What are you doing to him?” It sounds like she’s killing him, thick squelching sounds—

“Cutting out the heart of the family.”

He can’t see Dean, cranes his neck as hard as he can, trying to twist the chair around with his body. And then Dean _does_ scream, and blood surges through Sam’s veins, fire and ice all at once, adrenaline and fear spiking. He feels something old and rusted creak inside his mind, the tiniest _push_ like a breath of escaping air, moorings tearing free, and it’s just like when he was trapped in Max’s closet and he _needed_ to get out or Dean was going to die—

The explosion is so loud that Sam is momentarily deafened, left wondering if he damaged himself.

And then the demon screams, shrapnel and madness that pierces the distance, dragging him back to awareness. The demon thrashes on the floor, blood pouring from a smoking wound in her leg, and a tall, lithe woman stands over her, handgun aimed directly at the demon’s head, barrel still curling gun smoke. The gun in her other hand is aimed at the demons chest—flare gun, and Sam is confused for a split second—and then the shadows begin to whisper, flickering along the edges.

“Do it,” the huntress says, cocking the handgun and tightening her grip on the flare gun, “And I fire both of these into you.”

“It won’t kill me,” the demon hisses through pain clenched teeth. 

“No, but these blessed bullets don’t tickle, and your Daevas won’t be able to lay a single claw on any of us with the nice, bright fire that’s gonna be burning in your chest.”

The demon glares at the huntress, eyes narrowing to hate filled slits—and then her head snaps back, column of black smoke pouring from her mouth like a spewing fountain. The screaming is inhuman, and Sam flinches away instinctively.

And then it’s over.

“Dean,” Sam says, pleading with the huntress. “Is he okay?”

The woman moves to Dean, and dammit, why can’t Sam _see_?

“He’s alive.” And then she’s next to him him, slicing quickly through his bonds with a hunting knife. “He needs a hospital bad, though. Both of them do,” she says, helping him to his feet. He wavers unsteadily a moment, and she eyes him with concern. “Maybe you, too.” He breathes deep, forces his feet to stay under him, and turns—

Dean’s covered in blood, sticky red still trickling from the ragged holes in his chest, and the only thing Sam can see with any clarity is half his brother’s face, ashen pale and waxy, and too still, too still.

“Oh, God. Dean.”

He falls to his knees anyway in front of his brother, hands coming up to capture Dean’s face between them. One hand pressed against Dean’s head above the diagonal cuts slashed into his cheek, the other cupping his jaw. His lashes, so dark where they brush and curl against his too-pale skin, sharp angles cool and lifeless beneath his fingers.

“Dean?” he whispers.

Dean eyes flutter open weakly, seeming to graze over Sam’s face with passing focus. “Sammy?”

And Sam remembers to breathe again. Leans in close, pressing his forehead against Dean’s.

“I called an ambulance, but we need to go in case the Daevas are lurking.”

Sam doesn’t move.

“Sam?” He finally turns his head at her impatient tone.

“Can we leave yet, or are you guys not done making out?” Ronnie asks, slight smile tugging the corner of her mouth. 

And Sam flushes as he tries to meet her eyes. “What? We—he’s my—“

“Save the moral dilemma for later, okay?” she advises with a glance around. “For now, let’s just get out of here.”

*

_Day 31_

Hours of stitches and blood transfusions later, they finally tell him Dean’s going to be okay. He answers meaningless questions for a while—what Dean fell on, what he’d been doing when he fell—words droning endlessly on against the antiseptic white background. Finally, they let him see his brother.

*

He’s awake, lying in bed staring at the far wall like it had a window instead of more blank, white plaster, and he can see through it forever.

He’s not as pale as he was, but he’s still not anything approaching healthy tan. His cheekbones are gaunter, sharp slashes beneath the dull, empty green of his eyes. Mouth wider, lips thinner, creases deep with grief.

“Dean,” he breathes, sinking into the chair next to the bed, clasping his hands together. The name is a whispered prayer, a breath of relief too long held. But his brother doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even blink. Just goes on staring, like Sam hasn’t even spoken. Like he isn’t even here.

“Dean?” 

“Go away, Sam.” There’s nothing of Dean’s deep-throated rasp in it. It’s impassive, emotionless. A dismissal.

“Dean—“

And now Dean swings his head to look at Sam, green eyes flint and stone, cold, empty mask with nothing of Dean in them. 

“You heard what that bitch said about Dad.”

“Dean, it wasn’t your fault—“

“Go away Sam.” Dean’s eyes turn away, stare back at the wall again.

“You can’t—“

“Get out.”

He stands there, staring at Dean, willing his brother to look at him, to scream, yell, cry, anything, anything but this dull hopelessness like breathing dirt. Sam’s hands clutch helplessly into fists, eyes blurring, vision doubling.

He leaves.

*

After he’s gone, Dean closes his eyes, breathes as deep as the pain and stitches in his chest will let him.

“Dad,” he whispers brokenly, and bows his head.

*

_Day 34_

Three days. Three days and Dean’s still as a statue, eyes barely blinking, mouth never speaking.

When Sam comes to pick Dean up on the third day, he opens the driver door and waits for Dean to get in, shutting it behind him. He’d drive, himself, except that Dean needs this, needs _something_.

By the time he gets into the car, Dean’s already gunning the engine like he can’t wait to take off. And that’s good, right? That’s _something_. 

Sam shuts the door, doesn’t try to speak over the roar of the Impala’s engine as they drive, just reaches out to touch Dean’s shoulder, gentle, and careful, so careful—

And Dean flinches. Actually _flinches_ from Sam’s touch, twisting away with a grimace of pain.

Sam doesn’t try to touch him again.

*

They do what Dean promised they would before everything went wrong, before everything fell apart. They lay low at Ronnie’s hunting cabin out by the ridge, hiding out, choking on the silence of days and the bitterness of years.

Sam goes for walks every morning and every evening, and his feet are beginning to wear down paths through the surrounding woods, green grass laying flat against the earth, thinning away to bare earth in a narrow line down the center. The morning air is crisp, sharp with the taste of the coming fall, cold as it rolls in off the foothills with the fog. Dawn is pink and gold, like fire blazing down, the world reborn every morning as the birds wake and sing to life.

Sunset comes with a chorus of insects, so many that they sound like an orchestra, arranged in rows of tall grass and playing with timing. Swollen sun deep red and sky scorching pink, blinding through the black silhouettes of tall tree trunks, bruising and bleeding the sky until at last it fades purple to deep blue and the stars appear, one by one like tiny fireflies until they fill the night. 

He isn’t used to being so far away from everything, to the thick blanket of silence that clings to landscape, and at first it almost frightens him, that lack of sound. No cars, no voices, no humming machinery or power lines. He is far from everything he has ever known, and he may as well have come here alone, Dean slowly fading, his only tenacious link to the world outside.

There are evenings when he’ll sit out on the edge of the ridge, watching the sun disappear below the jagged horizon, drinking bottled beers until they’re gone and he sits beneath the cold light of the moon, staring at his own hands, wondering if he really exists at all.

Sometimes, he’ll spend the day outside, chopping wood for the night fires, stacking the cords and collecting wood chips to cook with their dinner. There’s an old fashioned icebox in the cabin, and it’s well-stocked. He makes them venison, and mutton, squirrel and rabbit. Brings up vegetables and spices from the root cellar and cooks those, too. Ronnie comes out to visit once, fresh milk and eggs, bearing bread in her arms.

Dean barely touches his food, doesn’t even pretend to push it around on his plate. Takes a few bites and sets it aside, rolls back over in bed with his back to Sam. Dean’s skin heals while his heart sickens, thin and gaunt and wasting away before Sam’s eyes.

He thinks about the demon, what she told him, and more importantly, what she didn’t. The memories recede; lose the taint of fear as the silence of the surrounding land slowly permeates his heart, pervading his mind. 

One night, after they’ve been there for nearly two weeks, he spends several hours laid out in the damp grass, the last swell of summer’s heat thick moisture on the air, hands laced under his head as he stares up into the face of the moon. Lies there until the mist creeps in, twining around the base of the trees, wreathing through the bushes and swallowing the ground plants whole. Lets it swirl over and around him, enveloping and surrounding until he can no longer see the sky above him. It snakes down into his lungs, heavy tendrils that he can feel, coating his throat and his sinuses until it’s all he can see, smell, taste, feel.

Is this what it would be like, he wonders, to be consumed by the power inside him? Would he be lost, nameless? Layered and coated in evil, the rest of him screaming just beneath the surface?

He blows the breath out from his lungs and rises to his feet, mist scattering from him in a broken whirlpool pattern. Walks back to the cabin and sits in the chair beside Dean’s bed.

His brother doesn’t stir, doesn’t move, but Sam can tell by the way he’s breathing that he’s awake.

He keeps his silence, holds watch over Dean until the moon rises high in the night and his muscles grow slack, head tilting back against the chair and eyes sliding closed.

*

_Day 46_

When he wakes, Dean’s turned over on his side, staring up at Sam with sleepless, puffy eyes. Sam swallows, throat dry, and he can see the ghosts that walk behind Dean’s eyes, pale shapes that swirl and cloud.

“I’ll make some coffee,” Sam says, rising to his feet and rubbing the sleep from his face, and Dean says nothing, just follows Sam with his haunted eyes, watches him stand. 

It’s a one room cabin, bed in one corner and a couch in the center, kitchen separated from the main room by a narrow length of old linoleum counter. Sam makes coffee with the water he drew from the pump yesterday evening and tries not to stare at Dean. His brother hasn’t rolled back over toward the wall, for once. He’s staring slackly over at the couch where Sam usually sleeps, but it’s the thousand-yard stare, and Sam knows Dean’s not seeing the room at all.

He puts cream and sugar in his own coffee, nothing in Dean’s. _Black, like my women_ , he hears Dean’s voice, clear as day, old humor curled into his husky rasp. The memory of the tired joke makes Sam smile, and he has to bite down on the inside of his cheek against the overwhelming emotion suddenly surging in his chest.

He _misses_ that Dean. He never would have thought it was possible. Even all the time he’d spent at Stanford hadn’t soaked the memory of his family in rosy hues. When Dean had bounced back into Sam’s life, he’d been just as boisterous, annoying and rude as he’d ever been, and Sam hadn’t had the occasion to think about it then—he’d been too exasperated—but it had been comforting, knowing his brother wouldn’t change, hadn’t changed, no matter how much it drove Sam crazy.

He swallows hard, grips the steaming mugs of coffee tight in his hands, and walks back over to the bed. Sets one mug down on the table next to the bed for Dean, then sits back down in the chair, sipping from his own and staring out the window on the other side of the room.

After a while, when Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, Sam gets up and goes outside for his morning walk.

*

Dean isn’t sure anymore how long it’s been since he last saw his Dad. Days? Weeks? Months? It doesn’t matter.

Dad’s dead. Dad’s dead because of _him_ , and it isn’t right, and it isn’t fair, and it hurts, bone deep and soul hard, an ache that suffuses his entire body. He lies in bed and stares at the wall, spends the days and nights in a torpor, trying to ignore that even deeper down than all that, is the anger that his Dad left him behind with all of this on his shoulders.

He doesn’t eat. Isn’t sure if he sleeps or dreams. He is lost, unraveling, drifting slowly from the only anchor left in his life. He thinks maybe he wants to drown-- _deserves_ to drown. After all, Dad and Sam both would have been better off with him dead.

And through it all, there’s Sammy, looking at him with those eyes, making him breakfast and dinner, Sammy, taking care of _him_ , so strong and so brave and so utterly alone. Sammy, holding on to _him_ and not letting go.

*

Sam sleeps in the chair beside his brother’s bed for the next two nights. On the third night, he comes in from outside to find his brother lying on his side facing the room again. Moonlight streams in through the window, reflecting in Dean’s open eyes. Sam stops walking, stands there near the foot of the bed, barely breathing as Dean rolls over onto his back and meets Sam’s eyes for an instant. And for just a fleeting moment, Sam sees something in them—something beyond guilt and despair. Dean rolls back over towards the wall, but Sam notices there’s just enough room on the outside of the bed left for Sam to fit, if he wanted to.

He doesn’t even think about it. Just pulls off his sweatshirt hoodie layer and crawls into bed beside Dean. Turns on his side, and scoots in until he feels his back just barely touch against Dean’s. 

He’s asleep so fast he scarcely has time to realize it.

*

_Day 50_

Sam wakes in the morning to palpable, expectant silence. He knows without turning, without rising, that his brother is turned toward him, staring at the back of his neck. He can feel the humid breeze of Dean’s breath skitter over the knob of bone at the top of his spine, feels gooseflesh spill down his back at the sensation.

“Where do you go every morning?” Dean asks, his voice a ragged whisper, rusty from two weeks of disuse.

“Just walking,” Sam answers. “Usually just through the trees, sometimes down to the ridge to watch the sun rise.” He pauses, waits to see if Dean will respond. But there’s just that steady breathing against the base of his neck. “You should… come, sometime. It’s so quiet here, Dean... more peaceful than anywhere else we’ve ever been.”

“Peaceful,” Dean echoes, as if he’s never heard the word before in his life. As if it might be an alien sound, testing the syllables of it against his tongue,

Sam feels the syllables of air slide over his skin, warm and damp, and he closes his eyes against the flush of heat it sends skittering down to his belly.

When he opens them again, it’s well past sunrise, and Dean has turned away from him again.

*

Two days after that, Sam returns to the cabin to find Dean sitting on the porch, illuminated in the deep pink hue of early twilight. He’s wearing a pair of ratty jeans and nothing else, slumped down and back into the chair. His face is covered in half-grown in beard, but it has almost finished healing, and he’ll barely have scars to show for his second encounter with a Daeva. But his chest is dotted with deep purple scars that look bruises in the coming darkness. They’ll smooth and fade to white soon enough, and then they’ll tan with the rest of his skin into near invisibility, but he’ll always have those tiny dips in the landscape of his chest. 

He manages to tear his eyes from Dean’s chest, sucks in a breath of cool, early evening air, and steps up on to the porch, sitting down in the chair beside his brother.

Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t look at him, just stares out at the fading light filtering between the trees, and they sit there side by side in silence as the darkness falls.

After the drone of insects has risen high in the night, Dean stands and goes back inside. Sam follows after, a few minutes later, and finds the extra space on the mattress like an unspoken invitation. This time, when he lies down back to back with his brother, Dean slides back just a fraction until they’re touching.

Sam doesn’t sleep on the couch anymore after that.

*

_Day 60_

The leaves on the trees grow bright and brilliant, shades of crimson, gold and flaming orange held against the pale blue backdrop of sky, as far as the eye can see. The air is always cold in the mornings now, and Sam can see his breath when he goes for his morning and evening walks. The insects and don’t sing in the evenings anymore, and he finds he misses their sounds, the silence too loud and too wide.

At night, after he makes dinner, he fills the woodstove and lights it, pushing at the wood with an iron poker until it flares, wood glowing white-orange along its edges.

It’s always too hot by the middle of the night, and he wakes one night to find himself restless in the heat, covers kicked off and pooled down around his feet, Dean fast asleep beside him. His brother is sweating into the covers, skin shiny and sleek in the firelight. Sam turns over, facing his brother’s back, inhaling his musky scent. He’s so close that he could dart out his tongue, taste the sweat pooling in the curve of Dean’s neck. He leans closer, feels the heat radiating off Dean in waves, can almost taste the salt, imagine the texture beneath his tongue.

And then Dean rolls over, eyes clearer than Sam’s seen them in months as they lock with his, dark green and intense in the flickering shadows.

“It’s not right.”

“What?” Sam blinks, overwhelmed by the fierceness in his brother’s eyes. 

“None of it,” Dean says, eyes straying from Sam’s face for a moment, before locking gazes again. “None of it’s right, Sammy. But especially me.” Dean hesitates, licks his lips, and Sam is transfixed by the motion of Dean’s tongue. 

“I should have stayed dead, Sam. Should have died, twice now.” Dean swallows, throat clicking audibly, and if his eyes are clear, they are bright, too vivid with pain. “If I had, you and Dad would both be free right now.” He looks so helpless, so fragile, as if he’s going to come apart right here in front of Sam’s eyes, just shatter into a thousand pieces.

Sam reaches out, presses his palm against Dean’s cheek. “Who says we’d want to be, Dean?”

“Of course you would,” Dean blinks, eyes heavy and confused.

“You told me once that I always knew what I wanted out of life, that I was good at knowing that, and getting it. That’s the thing that Dad and I always had in common, Dean. It’s why we fought so much. We both knew what we wanted and how to get it, and both of us were too stubborn to change our mind about how things ought to be.” It feels like relief to admit that, and he feels a weight slip from him suddenly, one he didn’t even realize he’d been carrying.

Dean’s staring at him with those confused eyes, like he wants to believe what Sam’s saying, but he doesn’t know how, and Sam doesn’t know when Dean got so broken, doesn’t know how to fix him.

“Dad died because he wanted you to live, Dean.” He runs his thumb down, sliding it across his brother’s lower lip. 

“And so do I,” Sam breathes, and then leans to kiss him.

Dean’s mouth opens to him, impossibly hot, insatiably hungry, like Dean’s dying and kissing Sam is all that can save him. Bites and sucks on Sam’s lower lip, licking along the skin caught between sharp, nipping teeth and then angling up, pushing into Sam’s mouth, licking, touching everywhere, wrapping around Sam’s tongue and suckling with slow insistence. Rough palms catching Sam’s face, sliding up along his jaw line to twist and knot in his hair, pulling him down hard against Dean’s face, their teeth clicking together as Dean devours him. Sam surges, pushes back, one hand behind Dean’s head to pull him deeper, the other sliding down Dean’s chest, along his side, down to the hollow of his hip. Sam sinks his fingers hard into the space there, clutching grip as he yanks his brother’s body up against him, hard. Dean gasps into his mouth, and Sam swallows the sound, feels it go straight to his dick. Dean’s as hard as he is, pressed up against his thigh, and Sam tugs, trying to bring him closer, get some friction.

And then Dean wrenches from Sam’s arms, leaving him empty, aching, and gasping for air. 

“Dean?”

Dean’s sitting up on the bed, back against the wall, staring at Sam wide-eyed, cheeks flushed, lips kissed swollen and deep red. “Sam… Sammy. Don’t.” He sounds scared, as if the thin wire under his feet is swaying; about to snap and give way, leave him twisting in the wind.

Sam sits up on his knees, peels his shirt from his body and sits before Dean, bare-chested in the flickering firelight, his eyes gentle. Places light palms on his brother’s cheeks, touching him like he’s precious, his eyes never leaving Dean’s. 

“I want this. Dean,” he says, tilting Dean’s face back toward him, willing his brother to look at him, and Dean does, eyes rolling toward Sam almost as if he can’t help himself. “Please.”

“All your life all you wanted was to be normal, Sammy. Live somewhere, put down roots, have a stable, boring life. Why this? Why now?” Dean’s voice is pleading, desperate, taking the sting from his words.

“Because…” Sam wets his lips, pulls the words out, awkwardly. “Because when I was nine and I broke my arm, you sat there in the hospital and held my hand for five hours straight, telling me it was going to be okay. Because you wouldn’t let go, even when they started putting the cast on. Because when I was five, I dropped my stuffed monkey in a haunted house and you ran back in to get it for me even though you were scared to death and Dad would have killed you for it. Because of all the times you gave me the last of something you wanted, or made a special trip for me, or sacrificed something for me.” 

He gives Dean a pained smile, and the words come easier now. “Because all my life, no one’s ever loved me like you, Dean. Because all your life, no one’s ever loved you the way you need to be loved. The way you _deserve_ to be loved.” He hesitates, eyes flickering, forces himself to hold Dean’s gaze. “You’re the only one who’s ever known me. And I’m sorry it scared me so much that I tried to run away. The love we have for each other… isn’t normal. It never has been. And I thought normal was what I was supposed to have.” 

He swallows hard. “And the normal I found… I won’t lie. It was nice. But it wasn’t even close to as real as this. This… wrong as it’s supposed to be, feels more natural, more right than anything else in my life ever has. It’s weird, I know, but…” He sighs, gives a shaky laugh. “Dean, it’s what I want.”

Dean stills, his eyes going so hard and flat that Sam scarcely recognizes him, and Sam’s breath catches in his chest.

“Don’t screw with me. Don’t lie to me, Sam. Not about this.”

Sam clenches his jaw, shakes his head and smiles, sad. 

“Dean… haven’t you been listening? All my life… You’re the only truth there’s ever been.”

Dean’s eyes are blown wide, stunned and liquid in the firelight, frozen as he stares at Sam, the muscles of his face working, trying to form words.

“Please,” Sam says, whispering it like a prayer. “I need you, Dean.”

“Sammy… God…”

“Please.”

Dean’s mouth slams into his with bruising force, and Sam tastes him through the thin copper of blood as lips and teeth collide, tangling, twisting, sucking and God, not enough, not _enough_. They fall from the bed with the force of it, savage kisses never ceasing as they slam to the floor and roll together, hands everywhere, Sam’s fingers running over the thin skin of Dean’s scars, again and again, tasting their texture, memorizing their feel, making Dean shudder, making him gasp. Slides his hand down and palms Dean’s stomach, feeling hard muscles flex beneath. Slips his hand lower, just under the waistband of his brother’s jeans and wraps his fingers around the head of Dean’s cock. Hears his brother groan, arch his back and rock his hips into Sam’s hand with the tiniest of shivers. Dean catches Sam’s lower lip between his teeth, bites down hard, then licks his way down Sam’s jaw, biting and sucking at his neck, fingers digging into Sam’s shoulders, nails breaking skin.

“God, Sam. So good.,” Dean breathes into his shoulder, then sinks his teeth in deep.

Sam shudders beneath him, working his fingers further inside Dean’s pants, getting a better grip. Strokes him slow and hard until Dean’s writhing against him, gasping obscenities into Sam’s ear.

“Yeah, Dean. Come on, live for me. Come for me, come on…”

And then Dean’s fingers circle around Sam’s wrist, pull his hand away. He lifts Sam’s arm up over his head and pins it to the floor, leaning down to seal his hot mouth over Sam’s, rocking his hips hard into _Sam_ this time, and Sam can feel Dean’s cock pressed against his through the thick barrier of their jeans. Sam moans at the sensation, and he can feel Dean smirk into his mouth as he kisses Sam breathless, thrusts against him until Sam’s senseless, panting and _needing_.

Dean lets go of Sam’s arm, slips his hands down between them, fingers working, clever and quick, pushing their pants down their hips. And _Oh, God_ , the slow drag of Dean’s bare cock against his almost undoes him then and there. One hand digging deep into Sam’s shoulder, the other gripping Sam’s ass tight, Dean presses down with his hips, their dicks aligning and straining against each other for an instant—then jerks forward with his hips, hiss of pleasure escaping him as Sam whimpers. Licks a trail of fire down Sam’s neck, whispers hot against him. “You like that?” Pushes his hips back down the length of Sam’s dick, long, slow and sweet as he buries his mouth in the curve of Sam’s throat, sucking until Sam can feel his blood painful and burning under his skin. They’re both slick with sweat, cocks slipping and sliding against each other with Dean’s merciless rhythm, holding Sam still with his hands and his body until Sam keens, spilling hot and wet against his stomach.

“Fuck yeah,” Dean whispers, kissing away the last of Sam’s moans, fingers digging deeper into Sam’s skin as Dean rocks into the slick mess between them. Sam puts his hands on the curve of Dean’s ass, pulls Dean harder against his body, urging him on faster until he throws back his head and shudders, mouth streaming curses and senseless words. Sam can feel liquid heat, spilling up his stomach, splashing across his chest, and he fists his hands in Dean’s hair, pulling him down for one last searing kiss while he rides out the wave.

After, Dean just stays there, breathing hard, head resting against Sam’s shoulder, chests sticky and pressed tight together. They sleep a while that way, Dean breathing slow into Sam’s neck, Sam’s arms wrapped tight around his brother.

*

_Day 61_

When he wakes up on top of Sam, he panics for a second, unable to remember how he’d gotten here. And then he sits up, chest peeling away from Sam’s with a squishy, tearing sound and he looks down, momentary horror completely forgotten.

Because that is seriously _gross_ and not at _all_ hot. Not even a little bit.

Right.

And again, he’s struck by the surrealism of everything feeling more normal than it has in weeks.

He gets up and goes to the basin where Sam poured the water last night. Swirls two washcloths around in it and uses one to clean his chest and the rest of him, staring out the tiny kitchen window into the bright, clear day. Rinses the used cloth and sets it aside to dry.

He turns back toward the main room, and there’s Sam, fast asleep, naked and beautiful in the tangle of sheets they’d pulled off the bed.

Christ. 

He shouldn’t have taken this. He shouldn’t want this. But this is _Sam_ and nothing else has ever felt so right. And he’d always thought he was the weak one, that Sam didn’t need him, but Sam’s been clinging to him harder and harder the more he’s drifted away, and maybe this isn’t exactly the role he’d imagined for himself in Sam’s life, but okay. Okay.

He watches his brother for a moment, then crumples the wet washcloth into a ball and hurls it at Sam’s chest.

Sam sits up, sputtering and confused, hand clutching the washcloth. “Dean? What the _hell_?”

“Sorry, Sleeping Beauty. The sun’s gonna be up soon. Thought you might wanna get cleaned up. We’ve got a big day.”

Sam stares at him for a second, and then his expression softens. “Dean, I want you to know—“

He turns away, heading back towards the kitchen. “Sammy, if you try to give me another overblown romantic speech, I’m gonna leave you here.” 

In the silence, he can almost hear Sam swallow. “Fine.”

Dean looks over his shoulder, shoots Sam a grin. “Bitch.”

And the clouds that were closing in on his face break up and roll out, leaving behind a smile.

“Jerk,” Sam laughs.


	3. Chapter 3

They gather up their stuff and get on the road early. There’s still the vengeful spirit in Spavinaw that they never took care of, and Sam cringes to think how many more people died because he ran off to get himself captured by a demon.

There are other things they need to worry about, too.

One look at Dean’s face and Sam can tell his brother is resolved. Dean is not going to talk about it. Sam can ply, and pry, and try to wiggle around in Dean’s head all he wants. Dean is _not_ having it.

Dean’s got a resolved face like few other people, and Sam can count on one hand the number of times he’s ever seen it directed at him. Most people and things that lay eyes on that face, it’s the last thing they ever see. It’s not the kind of face anyone or anything with a brain wants to go fucking around with. Most people wouldn’t even be fool enough to try, knowing damned well it wouldn’t get them anywhere but dead.

But he is Sam Winchester, and he was weaned learning how to twist Dean inside out to get his way.

*

“Dean… we seriously need to talk about this.”

“No, Sammy. Seriously, we don’t.”

“Do you ever think about anything, Dean?” Sam demands, staring at Dean from across the booth of the truck stop restaurant. 

“Bad for my complexion,” he mumbles, taking another bite of his triple-decker bacon cheeseburger, and god _damn_ that’s good after weeks of home cooked meals.

Dean isn’t usually the kind of guy who sits around wondering “what does it all mean?” a whole lot. He can, of course. And he does, sometimes. But he just isn’t built for that kind of misery in the long term. It doesn’t suit him well, frankly, and whenever he _does_ bother to indulge in it, he usually ends up looking and feeling like twelve miles of bad road, frozen in place, sick and half-dead, unable to move. Case in point: the last couple of months. He just can’t carry it all on his shoulders and mope around like Sam does on a regular basis. 

Case in point: Sam looks bitchy. Which really, is pretty par for the course, and things are feeling pretty normal in general to Dean again. Road flying away in the rearview of the Impala, bacon and beef crisped to perfection in his hands, next case already lined up. And yeah, okay, truth be told, pretty damned sexually satisfied, too, but he’s not even gonna let the “why’s” of that ruin his good mood.

“That would be the ‘denial’ blocking the blood to your head,” Sam quips.

“Look, Sam. I’m FINE. Okay? Just because you feel the need to discuss every little thing to death and take all the possible fun out of it—“

“Dean, you can drop the macho act. I’ve been with you every day for the last year and a half. I’ve seen you tear up over _songs_.”

“Hey. There are some very moving classic rock songs—“

“Dude. The Captain and Tennille?” 

Dean lowers his burger and takes a covert glance around to make sure no one’s listening. “Christ, Sammy,” he hisses angrily. “Are you _trying_ to get our asses kicked?”

Sam arches an eyebrow at him and gives him a look that could stop a mack truck in its tracks. “Sorry. Didn’t realize our gay incestuous relationship was such a _safe_ topic,” he deadpans.

And Dean can’t even believe this. All he wants to eat his first burger in a month or more in relative peace and quiet, take in a couple songs on the jukebox and wait a minute, just hold the fucking phone—

“ _Gay_?”

The look Sam gives him is so filled with reproach and disbelief that even Dean has to question the possible legitimacy of his own stupidity.

And he’s been so busy _not_ thinking about the incest that he _totally_ forgot to notice the whole gay thing.

“ _Relationship_?” he asks, and suddenly, he’s not hungry anymore.

Which is just as well, because Sammy’s already on his way out the door after that comment.

Dean rolls his eyes, gives his cheeseburger a last, longing look, and follows suit.

*

Sam doesn’t let up once they get in the car, and Christ, it really _is_ like having a girlfriend.

“You actually believe you’re okay, don’t you?” Sam finally asks, incredulous.

“I’m fine, Sam. Let’s just do the job, okay?”

Sam snorts in disbelief, and Dean decides to be the bigger person and ignore that.

Besides, he _is_ all right. Mostly. Except for maybe the lack of greasy food, but he’s working on that. All he needs is a good hunt and kill, get back in the swing of things. Let the old rhythm wash over him and carry him along just the way it always has.

He’s fine.

Really.

*

_Day 62_

The job sucks beyond the telling of it. Eight hours of hide and seek, running and chasing, and Dean feels ragged as he stumbles into the motel, hollowed out inside and bone tired.

The vengeful spirit turned out to be a kid. Another kid accidentally killed and quietly buried by Spavinaw Lake. Dean can still see him; skin paler than moonlight, reeds twined in his downy hair, big, black reptilian eyes, empty of everything except vengeance.

The smell of burnt bones and salt hangs heavy in the air, in his clothes, and he kicks from his muddy boots with a weary sigh. Looks over to where Sammy’s already sprawled in the other bed, worn out and mildly wounded. Still there, still safe, alive and breathing.

He wants to wash the smell of death off him, scrub the kid’s memory from his brain, but he’s too tired, and he falls into bed, images following him down into sleep.

*

When he wakes in the middle of the night, sheathed in sweat and clutching at the sheets, Sam is standing over him. Lake grass tangled in his shaggy hair, skin paler than milk by the light of the moon, black veins running in crisscross patterns beneath flesh that hangs, sagging and wrong from gaunt bones.

“Sam!”

His eyes are black holes that swallow everything as he stares at Dean, silently accusing.

“You did this.” The grit of silt and graveled dirt in his voice. “You let me become this.”

There’s a gun in his hand, gleaming like a pregnant promise, pointed at Dean’s chest.

“Sammy, no.” He twines in the sheets, falls from the bed, legs tangled up and twisted.

When he looks up again, his dad is standing there, his eyes as black as Sam’s.

“You’ll be the death of us all,” John says, and pulls the trigger.

Dean wakes screaming.

*

“Dean! Dean! Jesus, it’s me, Sam!” Sam says, grabbing his thrashing brother in his arms. “It’s okay, I’m here,” he whispers, pulling Dean in tight.

Dean goes very still against him, but Sam can feel his heart thundering through his ribs like stampeding horse, wracking breaths on the verge of sobs.

“Nightmare?” he asks, when he can finally pry his tongue from the roof of his suddenly dry mouth.

“Yeah,” Dean breathes after a minute, pushing from Sam’s arms. “Christ, gimme a little room, huh?” he says gruffly, pulling back.

“Dean… what was it?”

“Nothing,” Dean says again, more harshly, turning over on the bed and stuffing the pillow under his head with quick, aggravated movements. “Just a nightmare, Sam. Go back to sleep and stop hovering, okay?”

“Dean… all the time I’ve been on the road with you, you’ve never had a nightmare. You’ve had two in the last two months.”

“Yeah, that’ll teach me to go for the extra anchovies, huh?”

Sam closes his eyes. “Dean. Please. Tell me.”

Dean heaves a sigh, and Sam bows his head, waits. Tries not to think about how close Dean is, how warm his skin was when Sam touched him.

“Is it… was it about me?” he asks again after a moment, the words catching in his throat, and he swallows hard, lifting his eyes to his brother’s back.

“Go to sleep Sam,” Dean says, voice gruff, exasperated.

“We’ve got to start talking about this stuff, Dean. Something’s going on with you. It’s like every day you get further away from me, and every time I think you’re coming back you pull away even harder.”

He watches the muscles coil and tense in his brother’s back as he speaks, bites down on the inside of his cheek and hates—just _hates_ how much pain Dean is in.

“Dean, you’ve gotta let me help—“

“Help what, Sam?” Dean explodes, leaping from the bed to his feet and rounding on Sam, eyes cold and sharp. “What exactly is it you wanna help me with, huh? What do you _think_ you can _possibly_ help me with? The fact that dad’s dead because of me? That he sold his soul to a demon and he’s burning in hell right now for _me_? Or the fact that he did it so I can be here to kill you— _you_. My _brother_ , the only family I’ve got left.” Dean’s face is livid, and Sam flinches, backs away from the glower in his eyes.

“You’re… you’re right. I can’t—“ he begins, tongue tripping over the words, eyes blurring.

“Goddamned right you can’t,” Dean agrees, vehement. “Dad left all this on _me_ , Sam, and it’s mine to carry. So just back the hell off.”

Sam blinks up at Dean in surprise. “No, Dean. It’s not just yours. I’m your brother; that makes it mine, too.”

“Oh that’s rich. _You’re_ gonna help _me_ ,” Dean grates a harsh laugh through clenched teeth. “Well let me tell you, Sam. Harping on me to care and share isn’t helping me. And this crazy, twisted thing we’ve got going on here, _that’s_ not helping me either.”

Sam’s eyes fill, spill over and he shakes his head, brushes at his cheeks. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Oh, you’re sorry,” Dean laughs. “Everybody’s sooooo fucking sorry.”

Sam locks his jaw, turns his face down and away. “Forget it.”

“No, you wanna cry and hug and grow,” Dean taunts, stomping closer to the bed. He shoves his body down and braces his arms against the bed, thrusts his face into Sam’s. “Come on, Sam. Let’s share. How about that demon you went to see, huh? What’d she tell you?” 

“I said forget it.”

“I seem to recall being the one with a girl rummaging around in my chest like a goddamned silverware drawer, Sam,” Dean says, locking eyes with him. “So how about you tell me what she said, and I get to say when we’re done here?

Sam leaps up from the bed as if it were on fire, head down and hands clenched at his side, feet already in motion toward the door before his brain quite catches up.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Dean demands, right behind him.

“For a walk.”

“The last time you went for a walk we both almost ended up dead.”

Sam flinches again, pulling down deeper within his skin. The door knob is cold in his hand. 

“Fuck.” Dean’s fist thumps against the wall and Sam hears him exhale, hard. When he speaks again, his voice is decidedly calmer.

“Don’t go, okay? I… Christ, Sam. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” Sam replies, grinding his teeth together hard, turning the knob in his hand. And then, Dean’s hand closes over his, warm and surprisingly gentle. 

“No. I’m an asshole,” Dean sighs. Sam lets Dean pull his hand away, turn him around. Dean takes his hand back from Sam’s, rubs it along the line of his jaw.

“It’s not your fault Sam. And it’s not your fault that I can’t…” His hands move through the air, searching for help maybe. “It’s not your fault that I can’t handle it.”

“No. But it doesn’t make it any easier, Dean. Knowing you’re in this kind of pain because of me.”

Dean puts a hand on his shoulder, twists out something that could almost be a smile. Almost. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna figure it out. It’s my job to save you.”

“You can’t protect me all my life, Dean.”

“Yeah, well I can try like hell.” Dean’s face is a brick wall, impassive and unmoved.

“And I appreciate that,” Sam sighs. “But Dean—if it comes down to it, you _have_ to kill me.”

“No.”

“Dea—“

“That’s never gonna happen, Sammy,” Dean says with frantic finality, pulling his hand from Sam’s shoulder, turning and pacing away.

“I can’t trust that I’ll do it myself, Dean,” he says with a shake of his head. “I wish I could…”

“We’ll find another way,” Dean says, voice like brittle steel.

“What if—“

“We’ll find another way,” Dean roars, turning on him, fierce.

For a second he’s just stunned speechless, stands there, staring back.

“Please Sam,” Dean asks, his voice quiet now, so very quiet, and it breaks just a little on the sound of Sam’s name. His eyes are wide open green, filled with a broken sadness that takes Sam’s breath away. 

“I’d rather die. You understand? I’m not going to kill you. Ever,” Dean says, his eyes burning into Sam’s soul, and Sam remembers to breathe, filling his lungs deep with air.

“I can’t,” Dean says, and the crack in his voice this time shatters Sam’s heart. 

And Sam has a weird moment that feels like prescience where understands that he could ask his brother for anything else in the universe— _anything_ —for the last box of Lucky Charms, the man in the moon, the still-beating heart from his chest, and Dean would give it to him. Give it to him and _gladly_ , just so long as Dean doesn’t have to give him this. 

“Okay,” Sam finally says, and exhales a shaky breath. He holds his brother’s eyes and nods once, letting him understand through the look alone how very, deadly serious he is. “Okay, Dean.”

Dean stares at him a second longer, then nods back, accepting what he sees in Sam’s eyes. 

*

When Sam wakes in the morning, the motel room is silent, empty.

He pads to the window, looks outside. The Impala’s gone.

Sam tries to quell the rising panic clawing at the inside of his chest. Dean could have just gone to get breakfast. It wouldn’t be completely unusual.

He pulls out his cell phone, punches the #1 speed dial.

Dean’s phone rings once—then clicks to voicemail.

_Hey there, it’s your lucky day. You’ve reached Dean Winchest—_

Sam hits the ‘off’ button and bites his lower lip. That means Dean’s phone is dead or turned off.

He waits a full two hours, sitting on the edge of the bed dialing Dean repeatedly until he throws the phone against the wall, heart finally catching on to what his head already knew a long time ago.

Dean’s gone.

*

_Day 63_

He drives through the night and most of the day using Ronnie’s maps, phone turned off, radio turned down and wind humming in his head.

When he gets there, she’s waiting for him.

“Dean,” Missouri says, her big brown eyes solemn and knowing.

*

“My God, boy, What’ve you been doing to yourself? You look like death warmed over. Come on inside here, let’s get you something to eat.”

“I’m not interested in food. Or games. We both know why I’m here, am I right?”

Again those haunted eyes, staring deep inside him. “Yes.”

“Then you know that even waiting ten more minutes is longer than I can stand.”

She purses her lips, then slowly nods. “All right then. Come on.”

*

She looks at Dean’s palms for a long time before she says anything.

“Here,” she says, finally, pulling out a deck of tarot cards. “I want you to—“

“Missouri,” he says, stopping her short. “No games, remember? You got what you needed. I can see it in your face.”

“So much sharper than you always let on,” she says with a shake of her head. She settles back in the chair across from him, lays her hands in her lap.

“I can’t always see the future,” she begins, conversational. “It’s too uncertain. Too many threads… too many hands. Too many things that could change.”

She shifts in her seat, fixes him with that calculated gaze. “But some things… some things are a given.”

“What?” he asks, sharp and short, and God, if she tells him he’s gonna have to kill Sam he’s just gonna take out his gun and blow his brains out right here in this fucking tricked out parlor.

“You save him.”

“What?” He blinks, terrified that he heard her wrong.

“You’re gonna save him boy. The love you got for him in that heart of yours, ain’t nothing else you _could_ do.”

“But… then… that’s great!” he says, feeling weight slip from him, grinning for the first time in months.

“Not great,” he guesses again, looking at the set stone of her face.

“Don’t you even wanna know what the cost is?” she asks, somehow managing to sound both aghast and utterly unsurprised.

“I don’t have to kill Sam? I save him from… whatever this thing is that’s supposed to maybe happen?”

“Yes.”

“And Sam lives?”

She hesitates just a second before she nods. “He will.”

“Then I don’t care.”

She stares at him, sadness reflecting in the depths of her eyes. One corner of her mouth turns up in something that isn’t quite a smile and she nods once.

“No. Of course you don’t.”

*

The first thing he does is call Sam. And Sammy’s freaking the fuck out, screaming and yelling and cussing him six ways from Sunday with words that Dean would have sworn Sammy didn’t even _know_ , much less would _say_ , but when Dean finally gets out the words, gets to explain, the choked laughter on the other end of the phone is the sweetest thing he’s ever heard.

He spends the rest of the drive to Ronnie’s shop to pick up Sam with the radio cranked up, singing at the top of his lungs, hands thumping and slapping drum rhythm against the steering wheel.

*

_Day 64_

“You stupid son of a bitch,” are the first words out of Sam’s mouth when Dean walks in the door. And Dean doesn’t even have time to make a response, because there’s a sharp crack and a blinding pain in his jaw and then he’s reeling backwards, trying catch his balance.

“If you _ever_ leave me again, I swear to God I will KILL you, Dean.”

And before Dean can even stand straight, he’s yanked off his feet again, colliding with Sam’s hulking body, Sam’s arms around him, crushing him in a tight hug.

“Okay, Sammy. Okay,” he says, hugging his brother back.

He’s already forgotten what Missouri said about the cost.

*

Ronnie doesn’t say much, just offers Dean a jalapeño from a half-filled jar and shrugs when he declines, settling in behind the counter and looking through a book. She looks up occasionally, though, throwing sharp glances back and forth between him and Sam when they speak, going back and forth about their next case.

When Sam goes out back to chop some wood for the coming night, silence settles in, and Dean feels the need to say something.

“So, looks like we’ll be out of here come daybreak.”

She nods without looking up, and Dean shifts inside his jacket. “Look. I wanna thank you for everything you’ve done for us. Letting us use the cabin, taking care of Sam.”

“No problem,” she says, finally looking up with a smile. But there’s something… something in her eyes.

“Did Sam… tell you anything about what’s been going on?” he asks, the suspicion suddenly striking him.

“Pretty much everything, I think,” she says calmly, considering. And something of the fear Dean feels inside must show in his eyes, because her face softens. “He was pretty messed up about you leaving him, Dean. He thought it was all his fault.”

“Yeah,” Dean says with a nervous laugh. “Well, that’s Sammy, always blabbing like a girl when he—uh…” he trails off at her look.

“He told me about your dad,” she says, voice soft. “And about what he told you before he died. I think… Sam just needed to talk to someone, Dean.” The last words given with an emphasis, a meaning that he doesn’t miss.

And he gets it, he does. He should have listened to Sammy _before_. Should have taken Sam with him to go find answers. But with the chance of the answers at the end of that trail turning out as bad as Dean had been terrified they would… there was just no way.

At least that’s _all_ Sam had told her.

“No, he didn’t tell me about the other thing,” she says like she’d just been reading his mind, and he jumps inside his skin. “But anybody with eyes could see that.”

Dean meets her eyes, speechless, guard going up hard and fast. “What do you mean?”

And Christ, she’s giving him a patented Sammy look that says she knows he can’t _possibly_ be as much of an idiot as he pretends to be. He makes a quick mental note never to leave the two of them alone together again.

“But that’s none of my business,” she goes on with a shrug.

“It isn’t?” he asks, arch.

“No, it really isn’t.” She looks at him, calculating for a moment. “But if you’re fishing around for my two cents like I think you are—“

“No, really not.”

She actually laughs. “Dean, whatever’s between you and Sam is between you and Sam. But I think maybe you ought to deal with it. Figure out where it’s going. Because he needs you. And he needs to know you’re going to be there. And in what way. He was scared to death when you left. He needs to know that’s not going to happen again.”

“It’s not,” Dean answers, short and harsh.

“Good. Then hash this other thing out before it tears you both apart again.”

Dean just stares at her. “I thought you said this was none of your business.”

“Look,” she says, popping a jalapeño neatly into her mouth and chewing. She pulls her legs up into her chair and sits Indian style, eyeing Dean carefully as she swallows. “You guys do this a lot, right? Lives in peril, rescuing each other, end of the world stopping stuff?”

Dean lets his head list to one side and starts to shrug with one shoulder, then finally nods. “Yeah.”

“And it’s always just the two of you, together, alone? Sharing the most intimate details of your lives? You guys know each other better than anyone else on the face of the planet, you can tell each other the truth you can’t tell the rest of the world, and you both get each other. Add into that the kind of love that goes back to the beginning of your lives, and well, that’s a pretty heavy combination.”

He stops, stares at her. “Are you saying—“

“I’m not _saying_ anything.” She shrugs. “It’s your business. Not up to me to tell you what anything means.”

“He’s my little brother,” Dean says, as if it were everything. And for his whole life, it has been.

“I know,” she says and meets his eyes, and he doesn’t see anything like judgment there. It’s just a statement of fact, like they were talking about hunting, or the weather.

“So…” she says after a moment, proffering him the jar again and smiling like the last couple minutes never happened. “Jalapeño?”

He quirks a brow at her, cocks a half smile. He likes her. And any other time in his life, he’d make that known. He might even do it now, maybe, if she was… taller… you know, more guy-shaped… and possibly his little brother…

God, he really is screwed.

*

_Day 65_

When they get to the next hotel, Dean throws the keys down on phone table in front of the window and reaches for the receiver. “You wanna order pizza?” he asks, turning the phone in his hand.

Sam’s hand closes over his, guides the phone back to the cradle, fingers enveloping Dean’s, soft and warm.

“No.” Sam breathes the word against the back of his neck, and he shivers.

He pulls his hand from Sam’s fingers shaking, forces himself to breathe deep and turn, backing up a step beside the table.

“Look. What happened… it was… all right. I’m okay with it. But we can’t keep it up, Sam. I’m your brother, and we’re stuck with each other forever. And if that ever got screwed up…If _we_ ever got screwed up…” he works his jaw, tilts his head down. “Well. I couldn’t live with that.”

“I’m not the one who left,” Sam says, in a way that lets Dean know he’s gonna be hearing about this for the rest of his life.

“Jesus, Sam, I didn’t _leave_ you for good. I just needed to find out something.”

“Why didn’t you take me with you?” 

“Because… I just… needed to clear my head,” he finishes, feeling lame.

Sam nods, clearly not buying it. “Right. And if the answer had been no? If she’d said you didn’t save me?”

“Then I’d have found another way.”

Sam folds his arms over his chest, looking vulnerable. “Would you have come back?”

“Sammy…” And he really has made a mess of things if Sam can even wonder that for a second. “Of course I would have come back. Look… we’re okay on this, you’re gonna live, let’s be happy about it, huh?”

“It’s just everything else you have a problem with,” Sam says.

Dean bites down on the inside of his jaw and looks away.

“What do you think is gonna happen, Dean? What are you so afraid of?”

“Sam… I can’t do this.” He puts his hands in his pockets, turns to the window to look out over the horizon.

“We already did, Dean.”

“No.” He shrugs, makes a vague gesture with his whole body. “I mean… everything that goes with that.”

Sam sighs, forlorn as ever. “I get it.”

“You. You do?”

“You’re saying I’m not worth it.”

Easier to let him think that’s the answer—except, not. Because saying that would hurt Sam even more than he’s already hurting, and the pain in Sammy’s face is right now is already more than Dean can bear. There’s already been too many secrets between them, and Dean doesn’t think they can bear many more. He owes Sam the truth, doesn’t he? Besides, Dean isn’t sure he can hide how he feels, anyway.

He turns slowly, looks at Sam, hoping Sam will somehow telepathically or magically interpret what Dean’s thinking about. But Sam just sits there and stares at him, waiting for an answer with those hang dog eyes of his and Dean heaves a sigh, runs a hand through his hair.

“No, you idiot. It’s like I told you before. I’m saying… we take that step… there’s no coming back. And… And…” He exhales, all the wind going out of his sails, leaving one, inescapable truth. “And one day you’re gonna leave me, and where will I be then, huh?” He glances at Sam, eyes just touching, sad smile tugging the corner of his mouth. “What do I do, then, Sammy?”

Sam’s face softens, his eyes going wide. “Dean. You never said that before.”

“Didn’t I?” Dean asks. “Well, it was something like that, anyway,” he adds with a shrug, voice nonchalant. “So,” he claps a hand on Sam’s shoulder, holds for a second before letting go, ready to move on. “You wanna go out?”

“No,” Sam’s voice sounds weird, a thick note to it he’s only heard once before, maybe twice. “I think I’d rather stay in.”

Sam takes a quick step up to Dean and Dean takes a step back, back meeting cold glass. 

“Sammy,” he breathes deep, feeling like he’s breathing through molasses, slow, everything seems so slow.

“I already told you I know what I want, Dean.” Sam’s got his hand on Dean’s face, hazel eyes as open and warm as Dean’s ever seen them. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever.” His brows draw together for emphasis on the final word. “You think I know how to live without _you_?”

Sam leans in, puts his hands against Dean’s chest, and even though this isn’t the first time Sam has kissed him, it sure _feels_ like it is, butterflies dancing in his stomach as Sam’s mouth lands high, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“Sam…” He leans in against the pull of his brother, breathing ragged against Sam’s cheek, mouths nearly touching, so close he can feel the heat. Lets his eyes slip closed and for a moment he’s lost, surrounded by the scent, taste, texture of Sam. He feels something inside him start to open, start to answer, and he breathes deep.

“If we do this,” he whispers, eyes fluttering open, flicking up to catch his brother’s. “If we do this, there’s no going back.”

“I know.” Sam’s mouth, heated, breathless words so close Dean can feel them written on his own.

“I mean it,” he says, with more strength, finding the will to raise his face a notch, meet Sam’s eyes evenly. “I can’t go back.”

“I know,” Sam says again, and Dean can see in Sam’s eyes that he _does_ know. Dean can’t ever remember anyone looking at him the way Sam is right now; that love, that hope, that trust. It’s all-consuming, comforting and terrifying, known and new all at once.

And then Sam leans forward, lets his mouth skid over Dean’s, blazing hot and familiar sweet. Locks his lips over Dean’s and seals the words with a kiss, breathing Dean in. And that’s it; Dean’s gone. Wraps his arms around Sam and rises up on his feet, trying to take control of the kiss, but Sam’s got his arms wrapped around Dean, too, and he isn’t interested in letting Dean take over just yet. They’re both used to leading, tongues colliding and twining, teeth clicking, and finally Dean relents to Sam’s height, lets his brother lick the inside of his mouth, suck the sweetness out of his tongue. 

They’ve got time, after all.

They fall to the bed, arms twined around each other, mouths melded, Sam’s weight pressing him down into the mattress. His brother kisses like a late summer afternoon, hot and lazy, thorough and slow, tongue gentle and insistent, fingers splayed against the muscles of Dean’s back, tugging in his hair, tracing the new skin of his scars. He only stops kissing Dean to yank Dean’s shirt over his head, then scrapes his teeth over Dean’s nipples like Dean was a girl, swirls his tongue around them and sucks one while he pinches the other. Kisses his way slowly lower, leaving the skin down Dean’s sides red with bite marks, wet with spit. 

When Sam slips Dean from his jeans, he just sits there for a minute, staring at Dean’s body until Dean finally has to reach for him, pull him back down. Sam half-drapes his body over Dean’s, kissing him, hands everywhere against bare skin, all over Dean, making him crazy, follows the touch of his hands with the hot drag of his mouth. His hands slide up and down Dean’s thighs, fingers just grazing the crease, never quite touching the part of Dean that’s hard with need. Dean arches his back and hisses, and Sam maps every curve and contour of Dean with his mouth and hands and tongue and teeth, and Dean thinks maybe Sam’s discovered a few new roads, because _Christ_.

“God… such a fucking tease.”

Dean can feel Sam’s smile curve against the rigid muscles of his stomach, turgid breath and a flicker of tongue, tracing sparks down to the flesh of his inner thigh.

There’s a second where he realizes what Sam means to do, and his brain freezes, numb with shock and yammering in panic—Sam, this is _Sam_ and Dean can’t let this—and then Sam wraps his lips around the head of Dean’s cock for the first time, and every thought Dean’s ever had besides _”yes”_ , _“more”_ and _“oh my God”_ vaporizes on contact.

“Oh, _fuck_ , Sammy. Hell yes.”

Dean rises up off the bed, arching as Sam molds his mouth around Dean’s cock, wet, tight heat sealed around him, just holding him there for a second. Dean can’t help it, surges up with a stuttering thrust of his hips, feels himself leaking, slick and hot. And then Sam’s tongue curls up the underside of his cock, catching the fluid and flicking against the sensitive bundle of nerves under the head, and Dean makes a helpless noise deep in his throat. Then Sam starts sliding up and down the length of him, slow and thorough sucking as when he’d kissed Dean, dragging and swirling his tongue along the underside, fingers locked around the base. Sam gives a slight twist of his head as he rises up, letting his tongue follow the motion around the head of Dean’s cock before sliding back down to touch his lips to his fingers at the base, and Dean is left stunned, gasping.

“Christ, Sam. Yeah, just like that. That hot fucking mouth, wrapped around me like it was _made_ for sucking cock.”

Dean thrusts his hands into Sam’s hair, fucks into Sam’s mouth in slow time with Sam’s strokes.

“So good. You gonna spread your legs for me, too, Sam? Gonna beg me to fuck you?”

Sam licks slow up his length, then releases Dean’s cock with a thick, wet pop, and stares up at him in awe. “Jesus, Dean,” he breathes. “You talk to all your dates like this?”

“Only the ones that suck my cock like they were born to do it.” 

Sam shudders and Dean sits up, grabs Sam and spins him around under Dean’s body on the bed. “You like hearing that?” he asks, watching Sam’s face carefully.

Sam’s eyes slide closed and he nods. Dean puts a hand on his brother’s face, lets two fingers slip inside Sam’s mouth, and Sam sucks on them just like he’d been sucking on Dean’s cock a second ago, like he’s hard and hungry for it.

“God,” Dean breathes, amazed. “You’re such a slut, Sammy.”

Sam’s eyes fly open and Dean leans in, catches Sam’s lower lip between his teeth and settles his body down on top of Sam’s, aligning their hips. Slides his hands up under Sam’s shoulders, and Sam might be taller than him, might have a few pounds on him, but he’s no match for Dean’s sheer muscular strength. He grips Sam by the shoulders, holds him fast, and humps his cock into Sam’s, not letting Sam move an inch. Sam throws back his head and Dean holds his lip for a moment, flicking his tongue across the bottom edge before he lets go, thrusting it deep into Sam’s mouth. 

“You want me to fuck you, Sam?” he asks inside Sam’s mouth, between bites. Sam moans into him with a sound so enthusiastic it can only mean yes, and Dean rejoices, rewards him with another rough thrust of his hips. 

“Gotta come for me, first Sammy. Gotta get you wet.”

Sam groans and Dean rocks into him with hard, quick thrusts, the friction between their cocks building, and Dean has to dig his nails into Sam, bite down on his neck, breathing hard to keep from coming. 

“Come on Sam. Want my cock inside you, don’t you? Gotta come for me—“ Sam thrashes under him, jaw colliding with Dean’s face and he bites Sam’s cheek, whispering against hot skin as Sam comes, splashing hot against his stomach. “Yeah, just like that.”

Dean keeps moving, slipping against Sam until Sam’s done, panting and gasping, eyes wide. Moves one hand down to Sam’s deflating cock and pumps it in his fist, sliding down Sam’s body to sit up on his knees.

“Spread your legs,” he orders, eyes fixed on his brother’s face, flushed dark pink, lips swollen and bitten deep red, eyes closed and body arching helplessly toward Dean. Sam opens his legs, and Dean slicks his fingers in the warm come on Sam’s belly, traces a line down the center of him, pushing against the tight hole there.

Sam jerks his hips and gasps, then makes a sound that goes straight to Dean’s dick, thrusting and searching for more of Dean’s fingers blindly with his body. 

“Easy,” Dean whispers, pushing the tip of his finger inside—and _fuck_ , that might just be the best sound he’s ever heard, coming out of Sam. 

“That what you want?” he asks, finger sliding in deeper, deeper, until his hand is flush against Sam’s body. Sam is beyond answering, eyes clenched shut and body shuddering with waves of pleasure. And Dean doesn’t know much about this in practice, but he’s read a _lot_ of Penthouse Letters over the years and he knows how this is supposed to work. Lets his finger slide back out just a little, then hooks the tip, dragging down the inside. When Sam nearly comes up bodily off the bed cursing and twitching, Dean feels a surge of pride.

“You like that?” he whispers, and leans down, bent nearly in half, the arm that’s stroking Sam trapped between his belly and his knees, the other one held out straight down, still working inside of Sam. He pushes a second finger in to join the first and Sam hisses, arches like a cat on the tips of Dean’s fingers.

“Gonna fuck you, Sam. God, I can’t wait to fuck you.”

And Sam whimpers, actually whimpers underneath him, bucking and twisting his hips up into Dean’s hand.

“So hot, Sam.” He breathes heavy and slow into Sam’s ear, bites down on the shell and practically writes the words on his skin with breath. “Gonna fuck this hot little ass.” Dean scissors his fingers inside of Sam, gripping his brother’s cock firm in his other hand.

“God, yes. Please, Dean,” Sam gasps, thrusting against his hand, and Christ, the look on Sammy’s face, begging in that broken voice while he fucks Dean’s hand is just about the hottest fucking thing he’s ever seen.

He lets his fingers slide out of Sam, takes the requisite thirty seconds to grab a condom and roll it on, and then he’s back, kneeling between Sam’s thighs, palming against the cooling come on his brother’s belly. Makes a fist out of his slick hand and pumps it over his cock, letting the tip touch against Sam’s hole. And fuck, Sam’s actually shimmying his hips, moving down the bed, trying get _more_ \--

A nudge of his thigh, the tiniest of pushes, and then he’s sinking, sliding in—sliding inside _Sam_ \--one sweet inch at a time, velvet crush of heat clutching at him.

“So tight, Sam, Jesus,” he swears, closing his eyes against the wave of pleasure, leans to kiss Sam’s mouth.

Sam cries out against him, arching again, and Dean thrusts all the way inside, feels Sam clench around him, slick tight heat, pushing him to the sweet-sharp edge, too much, too fast. He breathes deep, mouthing against Sam’s jaw and waits.

“Okay?” he asks, once the moment passes. And he raises his head to look at Sammy, needing to know that he’s all right.

Sam takes a deep breath, and Christ he looks hot, sweaty, and helpless and _needing_ \--and then he nods, flexes his body around Dean’s cock, making Dean groan. “Okay,” he answers, breathless.

Tight. God, nothing’s ever been this tight, and Dean has to take a few slow slides in and out, let his dick get used to the feel of silken heat crushing down all around it. And Sam is not helping, wiggling his hips all around like a wanton whore. After a bit, he finds a rhythm and lets it build in a slow burn, one hand sliding down between their bodies to pull at Sam’s cock again. Adjusts his angle and thrusts upward, seeking that spot that made Sam keen with pleasure earlier.

Whatever the sounds are that come out of Sam’s mouth, they aren’t anything resembling words, and Dean stays on, pumping steady, driving up into that spot again and again. He works his hand furiously around Sam’s dick, trying to push Sam over the edge before Dean loses it completely. He jerks his hips and thumbs the head, and Sam’s eyes fly wide open, helpless and glazed, lungs gasping for breath. 

“Oh _God_ , Dean, fuck—“ and Dean can feel his brother’s cock go rock hard in his hand, hips shuddering and body fluttering, upper body pulling up off the bed.

“Yeah. Come on, Sam. Come for me. Let me see it.”

“Dean,” he gasps out again, and then his voice turns into a strangled snarl, teeth sinking deep into Dean’s shoulder.

“Fuck yeah. Come, Sammy,” he hisses, jerks Sam’s cock harder as he sinks his own deeper, and bends to devour the sounds coming from Sam’s mouth. Clamps his mouth over Sam’s with hot, hungry kisses, licks the moans from his brother’s mouth, and then it’s all too much, Sam quivering all around and clenching on his dick, and he shoves his face down hard into Sam’s shoulder, bites deep and gives one last upward shove of his hips. Everything goes white-hot for a split-second; cock exploding so hard that everything else ceases to exist for a moment. There is nothing but Sam’s hot, tight body squeezing against him, milking him, Sam’s voice rasping out his name, and he has to let go of his brother’s shoulder so he doesn’t do permanent damage, turning his head into the pillow and biting down on it instead.

When he finally comes back to his senses, he has a mouth full of feathered down and the pillow is ripped open like a ravaged piñata. He lifts his head and spits feathers, turning to look down at Sam.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” he remarks.

*

Sam’s pupils are blown wide and he’s absolutely gorgeous; boneless, glowing and thoroughly fucked out. Blood trickles from his lower lip where he bit into it too hard, and Dean spends the next half an hour using his own mouth to clean and lick away the blood, loose fist wrapped around Sam’s dick.

After Sam comes for the fifth time that night, body trembling, back arching, cock stuttering and pulsing nothing but air, Dean finally relents, and they fall asleep like that, side by side.

*

_Day 66_

This time, when Dean wakes up, he’s not disoriented at all. He wonders what that says about him, that he’s already getting used to this.

Sam’s fast asleep on his chest, and Dean can’t see him through the tangle of his hair. He moves his hand to brush aside the shaggy bangs—and then Sam stirs, lifts his head and blinks at Dean with sleepy eyes.

“Morning,” he says. And God help him, Sam’s already starting to get that concerned look in his eye—

“We’re not gonna have to have a talk about this, are we?” Dean asks before Sam can say another word. “Because I haven’t had a drop of coffee yet and I just might have to kill you if you go having a chick flick moment all over my non-caffeinated self.”

Sam gives him an odd look, brows drawing together like he doesn’t understand for a second, and then he laughs, and Dean feels something ease in his chest. “You know you’ve got a problem, right?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, the problem is I don’t have any,” Dean says with a mock-sigh.

Sam’s hands are moving over his skin, and he’s beginning to forget all about coffee—not that he really cared much in the first place.

“We okay?” Sam asks with a tilt of his head that’s just too fucking cute for words.

Dean squishes the natural urge to dodge or crack a joke—that’s not what Sam needs to hear. And damn, he’s not very good at this, but he’ll try. For Sam, he’ll try. 

“Yeah. We’re okay,” Dean nods, and the brilliance of Sam’s smile ought to be illegal at this hour of the morning.

Actually, Dean feels a damned sight better than ‘okay’. And last night… last night was fucking amazing, actually. Gay thing aside (he’s not counting that since it’s _Sam_ and Sam is something beyond male or female), his brother’s a pretty incredible fuck.

And that is just… so sick and twisted and wrong. Yet also, true.

He thinks about that for a split second. It doesn’t _feel_ wrong, though. Sam’s hands on him, Sam’s body against him, Sam filling up his heart and his mouth… it feels right as rain. After all, it’s Sammy. Is there anyone in the universe Dean loves or trusts more? Throw excellent sex in on top of that, and well… Dean’s a pretty simple guy at heart, and he knows a good deal when he sees one. And then all semblance of thought explodes with Sam’s mouth wrapped around his dick, and he throws back his head, digging fingernails into the skin of his brother’s back and panting out his name.

*

Several hours later, they finally manage to pry their hands off each other and shower. Sam’s smiling as they pack up their gear, and Dean’s actually feeling pretty lightheaded, himself.

Yeah, it’s fucking weird. Okay. But Dean thinks maybe he can live with that, for this.

Maybe… maybe everything will be okay. They’ve got each other. Hell, that’s all they’ve ever had. Maybe it’s enough.

And maybe he can have this. Just this. This one, true thing.

“Come on, _honey_ ,” he teases as they exit the hotel, and then smacks Sam on the ass, grinning at the expression on his brother’s face. “We’ve got work to do.”

Sam’s grinning back by the time Dean puts the key in the ignition.


End file.
